


Whatever Comes

by captainsandsoldiers



Category: Star Wars - All Media Types, Star Wars Sequel Trilogy
Genre: F/M, Fix-It, M/M, Slow Burn, yeah I felt awesome about TROS why would you ask
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-03
Updated: 2020-02-12
Packaged: 2021-02-27 07:33:54
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 9
Words: 23,923
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22103380
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/captainsandsoldiers/pseuds/captainsandsoldiers
Summary: “How could I show my face to those people?” he said quickly, painfully, almost hissing. “They won’t- I mean, I don’t deserve their forgiveness. Or their mercy. I’ve - I’ve had so many of their number killed. I almost destroyed their world.”When you’ve been fighting one fight for so long, picking up the pieces afterwards is difficult, even if you win. Picks up right after the kiss. Reylo, some Finn/Poe. TW: discussions of suicide. Regular updates!
Relationships: Kylo Ren/Rey, Poe Dameron/Finn, Rey/Ben Solo
Comments: 26
Kudos: 214





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Happy new year, everyone! I’ve come out of deep hibernation bearing some much needed post-TROS therapy (for all of us). This fic fixes the biggest of JJ’s many mistakes in this movie and goes on from there. It diverges from cannon in two big ways: 1. Ben doesn’t die after the kiss (obviously, also he keeps the Skywalker saber), 2. Finn is not Force-sensitive (feel free to guess how I feel about that story choice). I apologize for any other small mistakes I may make re: cannon because this movie was such a mess and had so many contrivances that it’s hard to keep everything straight. 
> 
> Future chapters will include discussions of suicide so TW. This fic is COMPLETE (wow, look at me actually finish something instead of running in going guns blazing) and I’ll be posting chapters regularly, most likely 2x weekly. Here is chapter 1 of 9. 
> 
> Please enjoy and leave comments, I love to hear from you!

Chapter 1

The first thing she felt was a hand, pressing into her side. The pressure was firm, the connection was warm. Rey followed it out of the darkness.

When she finally opened her eyes, she found herself blinking into a face that felt extremely unexpected. But at the same time, it was the only face she knew she would could looking at, at that moment. She became rapidly aware of the sensation of warmth and the feeling of her body tangled up with that of the face just inches from hers, his dark clothing contrasting sharply with her white. A pair of dark eyes looked back at her, full of what looked like breathless anticipation and concern. Neither emotion she was used to seeing within them.

 _It was over_ , she realized, taking quick stock of the situation. It was over, and they had won, and there was no fight left to fight. It was a feeling she’d been running toward for so long… and now she was finally there. Blinking again, she realized she must have been close to death, but had been brought back. She had been brought back by the only person in the galaxy who had the power – or will – to do it.

Ben Solo.

Lifting a hand, she placed it on the side of Ben’s angular face, as if to prove to herself that he was truly there and everything that had just occurred was real. She felt her lips turn up in a smile as the surge of emotions coursed through her; relief, gratitude, hope, awe. She surveyed his face up and down, taking stock of things she had never seen before.

“Ben,” she said softly, meeting his gaze again and still smiling, still in awe that she was addressing him in that way. For it was true. Kylo Ren was dead. His billowing cloak and cracked helmet - those were gone too. The person staring back at her at that moment was astonishingly human, unlike the monster she had previously encountered. They were two humans together, bathing in not just the strength of their Force connection, but their emotional one.

At her utterance, Ben’s face lit up in a smile Rey had never seen before. It was a sight that filled her warmth. She had never seen him look like this – she wondered if he even remembered what it was like to smile in such a genuine way. Their faces were so close she could feel his exhale on her chin. The connection they had been building in the time since their very first confrontation what felt like a lifetime ago was coming to a head at that moment. It was hard to imagine something more intimate than literally being within one another’s feelings as they had been before, but this somehow was.

It was not clear which, if either of them, had initiated the next moment – Rey would ponder it for some time. But they quite suddenly went from apart to together. His lips were on her own and she felt his grip on her body tighten, like he was scared she would fall away again. She too reciprocated his passion, giving in to thoughts that she that had woken her from sleep in the past, pulling his face toward her with her hand. It was a secret desire she was not even able to admit to herself, but it lived in the deep recesses of her heart, complicated and conflicted.

 _How could she ever feel for someone like him?_ she had reasoned with herself bitterly. But there was not a single other person in the galaxy who understood her as he did, and she him. Even the Emperor had admitted it – they were connected. They had seen each other’s most intimate thoughts. How could they _not_ have grown a silent longing for the other?

Breaking apart, Rey was struck by the warmth of the kiss, the softness. It was in deep contrast to the dark, cold, and dank place where they currently found themselves, surrounded by chaos. Ben was holding her gaze, looking more at peace than she had ever seen. Rey closed her eyes and gently rested her forehead against his, simply relishing the way their breath sounded together.

She was unclear how long they stayed like this. Time seemed to freeze in that moment. Rey felt as if she never wanted to leave it, the feeling of comfort within each other. The feeling of relief and love neither had felt in a long time.

The moment was finally shattered when a cracking sound not far from where they were lying caused them both to suddenly separate and look over – a rock or shard of something had fallen mere feet away, from the destruction above.

“We have to go,” Rey said quickly, to a nod from a shell shocked looking Ben. They disentangled themselves and Rey helped Ben to his feet, feeling his weakness.

“Are you going to be alright?” she asked, looking up at his face as he regained his enormous height. It dawned on her how much of his lifeforce he had given to her to resuscitate her, and felt a surge of gratitude and affection again. Ben, who had been looking up at the chaos around, met her eyes again, and nodded. She gave him a small smile and slid her hand into his much larger one. He looked down at the sight and clasped her hand harder.

It felt right.

And so the two of them took off, with Rey silently resolving to banish this place from her consciousness as much as she could. So much evil and death. It dripped of the Dark side.

When they arrived at the x-wing, they worked together quickly to prepare it for takeoff, keenly aware of the destruction raging around them. The remaining Final Order ships were facing mass destruction, and the Resistance ships were leaving, probably too hoping to banish the memory of this cursed planet.

“Rey,” Ben said, quickly placing a hand on Rey’s forearm as she made a motion to climb into the ship. She looked at him quickly and quizzically, still unused to hearing him say her name without rage. “Where are we going?”

"Back to headquarters, of course!” Rey said with a touch of impatience. “I need to alert everyone that –“

“I can’t go there,” Ben said, suddenly sounding extremely grave. The smile was long gone from his face.

“ _What?_ ” Rey said incredulously. “Where else are we supposed-“

“You need to go there. Celebrate your victory. But I – I can’t, I can’t show myself there.”

His voice was full of pain. Rey had raised her foot to start her climb onto the ship, and felt it dropped back to the ground as she was stricken and taken aback by this development. Ben looked away for a moment, then met her eyes again, deathly serious.

“How could I show my face to those people?” he said quickly, painfully, almost hissing. “They won’t- I mean, I don’t deserve their forgiveness. Or their mercy. Anyone’s. I’ve - I’ve had so many of their number killed. I almost destroyed their world.”

He pushed a hand Rey realized was shaking through his messy dark hair as he collected himself. She herself was feeling as if she had been knocked to the ground again, her blood feeling cold as it ran through her veins. 

“They’ll be fine, we won and you’re with me and I…” Rey stammered in defense, trying to reason to him and to herself. “They’re good people – they forgive! They know that you were influenced by…”

Ben’s vigorous shaking of his head caused the rest of the sentence to die in her throat.

“You’re too – you’re too kind-hearted, Rey,” he said forcefully. “Grief – they deserve their grief. I’ve done too much harm to deserve anything from them. If they even found out I was alive-“  
  
“I won’t tell them!” Rey blurted out. Ben shook his head to himself.

“It’s more than I deserve for you to do that,” he replied, and paused again. “It’s… say whatever you want. My being gone, to somewhere remote and empty – it’s for everyone’s good.”

He looked deeply into her eyes and repeated it.

“Everyone’s.”

Rey felt tears well up in her eyes. After everything they had been through together, having to leave him felt like the last thing she wanted. But rationally, she knew he had a point. The rest of the Resistance, and indeed the whole galaxy, none of them knew him like she did. Nobody saw the person within Kylo Ren as she had been, for a long time. People would want punishment, revenge.

Ben looked away, clearly unable to bare the sight of her distress any longer.

“You saved my life…” she began quietly, reasoning out loud, and quickly thinking of a litany of places she could take him. It took her a minute but she settled on one.

“Okay, let’s go,” she resolved in a hollow voice, trying to surreptitiously wipe the tears from her eyes as she restarted her climb into the cabin of the x-wing. The warmth of his lips and the comfort of his embrace still felt very real - but now she felt like they were being ripped away from her.

\---

The twin suns were low on the horizon as Rey brought the x-wing over the surface of Tatooine. There was a certain cruelty in brining Ben to this place, where the uncle whose death he was responsible for grew up, but it was the only habitable place distant and secret enough that she could think of. She wasn’t sure how much he knew about what it really was but, didn’t want to hurt him further if he did not.

“I’ve come here a few times,” Rey said, as they approached the small former moisture farm, deserted in all directions. “So there are some provisions inside. I managed to get some of the distilleries to work again so there should be water.”

The truth was, Rey had come here before part of curiosity, part out of preparation. In the process of her Jedi training, she created a few small camps around different distant planets. These were to be places to hide in case of the worst, where she might return to her scavenging ways while she regrouped. She also came here out of curiosity, to see the life that had been taken from her Jedi master when he was her age. Somewhat comfortingly, it reminded her a lot of Jakku – arid, sandy, sparsely populated. It made her more connected to Luke.

Ben, who was seated in the cramped space behind her, was silent for a few moments.

“Thank you,” he said quietly, in his low voice. They had spent the ride mostly silence – both knowing it had to be quick so that Rey could get back to the Resistance headquarters and not alarm people by being gone too long. The reality of their imminent split was hovering over them both.

“And if you need anything else,” Rey said, talking mostly just to fill the silence. “There’s a trading post not too far from here, there should be a map inside that I marked it on.”

She realized after she said this that it was silly to assume he was planning on seeing any other humans while here. Her mind rolled through what he must be planning now, but she was drawing a blank. She turned her mind to focusing on landing the ship near the dome like entrance to the subterranean dwelling of the homestead that once belonged to the Lars family and young Luke Skywalker.

They disembarked and Rey turned to double check everything on the battered x-wing as Ben strode a few paces toward the deserted skyline, staring off into the distance. She knew she was stalling and forced herself to turn back and confront him and see if there was something, anything she could do to change his mind.

“You should go,” he said with his back to her, as if he could read her mind. “They’ll… be getting worried.”

Rey looked down at her feet, so consumed with a conflicting jumble of emotions that she was lost for words. She looked up into the sunset in front of which the tall Ben was silhouetted, his hair blowing slightly in the desert wind. He turned back to her and caught her eye again.

“Thank you, again,” he began in a slightly strained tone, almost like he was trying to keep his distance from her purposefully wide.

“I need you,” Rey blurted out, finding her voice. He blinked at her. “To rebuild the Jedi,” she supplemented quickly, feeling her face heat at the obvious lie by omission. “You’re the only one who can help. We can do it… together.”

He looked away as she said it. Each had begged the other to join them before, desperately hoping the might not lose the other for good. This situation was the same.

“I destroyed the Jedi,” Ben said darkly, not meeting her gaze. “The rest of the Knights of Ren, too. The new generation… they need to learn from my _mistakes_ , not from me.”

“That’s exactly why you’d be so valuable in that,” Rey said, her voice rising with confidence and hope. “They need to learn that someone lost to the dark side… that they’re not gone forever. And learn how easy it is to fall into its grasp!”

Ben looked back up at her, his angular, crooked sort of face full of pain. When he spoke, his voice was both anguished and bitter.

“Who would want me near the next generation defending our galaxy? I need… my crimes are too great. No punishment is harsh enough to equal what I’ve done.”

He looked down at his feet again, mummuring the next words without meeting her gaze. Rey didn’t know if she would have been able to bear it if he had.

“Being away from you is already a punishment - but not enough.”

Rey let out a small gasp and felt her heart seem to fall into her stomach. Being subjected to such joy followed by such pain alongside with the toll the battle had taken on her body made her suddenly feel extremely weak, like her knees might give way right in that moment. She had nothing to say to it, just keeping herself upright at that moment was enough of a struggle.

“I’ll come back,” she managed in a mangled sort of tone.

“Only to take me even farther than this,” Ben replied, sending his gaze over the homestead again. “Thank you. But please, just… go.”

He looked at her again and his arm twitched, like he was about to raise it to touch her in some way, but he made no real physical movement toward closing the space between them. Rey was out of energy and out of words. She rationally understood his impulse and reasoning. But accepting them was a whole different matter.

Turning, she trudged back to the x-wing, starting to climb back aboard with shaking limbs. Ben was still standing where she had left him, his back to the ship and facing the horizon. As she was halfway up to the cabin, a thought entered her head.

“Your mother never gave up on you!” she called out to Ben suddenly. He turned, face blank. Rey swallowed and summoned her strength again. “She gave her last to turn you back – she wanted you back with us. Don’t make that worth nothing.”

With that, Rey looked back away and climbed the rest of the way into the ship, avoiding looking toward where she knew Ben was as she powered it up. As her ship rose, she felt hot tears falling down her face again, onto her shirt. She made the decision to make one last look. To her surprise, Ben was looking up at her taking off, his arms at his sides, but making no motions to call her back. Stifling a small sob, Rey lifted the ship and turned it away, zooming off into the distance again.

As her ship rapidly got smaller and smaller before disappearing completely, Ben Solo watched.

Unbeknownst to Rey, he felt tears starting to slide down his face too. 


	2. Chapter 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thanks for everyone who tuned in so far! I hope you like how it's going. Next update on Friday!

Rey relished the cool, crisp feeling of the outdoor air as she stepped out into the night, tearing herself away from the raucous celebrations inside one of the Resistance hangars. There had been a big feast with endless toasts, the festivities had transitioned into a joyous scene of drink and dance as the remaining members of the Resistance enjoyed their last night of joy together before the business of rebuilding begun. Yes, there was much to do, people to mourn, business to take care of – but that night, everyone simply enjoyed the sweet taste of victory and camaraderie.

The topic on everyone’s lips was what their plans were now. Some were determined to go back to their home planets and rejoin family they had not seen for a long time. Others were excited to rejoin their trade of choice, start their own businesses, participate in rebuilding the Republic, or just relish the simple joy of no longer having to live every day as a life or death battle. It was euphoric for most, and Rey derived a lot of joy from seeing so many smiles and embraces that night.

News of Palpatine and the First Order’s defeat was spreading around the galaxy as night went on. Uprisings against the remaining elements of the First Order were taking place, and they were swiftly falling now that they were bereft of leadership. Defections were everywhere. Everyone toasting the return of their freedom. Doubtlessly, the New Republic would soon be formally restarted, along with the Senate and its various bodies.

Of course, Rey could not simply celebrate like the rest of them. She had forcefully resisted calls to tell the story of exactly what happened in the Emperor’s throne room, saying it was a story for another time. Mainly, she was just trying to avoid thinking of the pain that had come shortly after victory. She’d shied away from all toasts in her honor, repeatedly emphasizing that the whole thing was a group effort and no one person can be thought of as responsible for the victory.

Rey watched her friends, new and old, discuss their next moves feeling somewhat hollow inside. In her head, when she imagined the end of the war against the First Order, she imagined she might have someone to help her lead the rebirth of the Jedi. First this was to be Luke, but he was gone. Then, it was to be Leia. And most recently, Ben, the only other trained Jedi in the galaxy that she knew of.

Rey wanted nothing to do with the bureaucracy of restarting the galactic government. In the back of her mind, she knew there would soon be questions she could not run from answering for much longer. Getting involved with the politics would be a surefire way to hasten that, so she was not keen on doing so. All she knew was that she could only focus on the Jedi. Perhaps it was cowardly to run now at the dawn of the new age, when people would be looking to her for leadership. But she could not bear to lead then, not after what she had gone through.

So the question remained, who could she enlist to help her, if anyone? Instantly, she knew she shouldn’t as Finn or Poe, her two best friends in the galaxy. Finn had been in conversation with Jannah, the fighter from Kef Bir, on and off both night. Rey watched the way that his eyes sparkled when he spoke to her.

Once, long ago, before many things had changed in her life, she thought maybe there was a chance of something happening between her and Finn. She certainly had an inkling he might be interested in her. But ever since she started her training, she began to feel too distant from either him or Poe, for that vague notion to survive. So she let it slip away, not wanting to burden another with the weight of her Jedi destiny anyway.

Poe, in either case, was the star of the party that night. She watched his intensely handsome, dark eyed face laugh and talk animatedly with just about everyone. He was the leader now, the General, with Finn. Doubtlessly, he would be overseeing the formal dismantling of the organization, and then go on to great things in the New Republic. Certainly better than being a runner of any kind of illicit substance. He was way too talented of a pilot, and a leader, to need to rely on that any longer. Yes, Poe’s future was bright, and Rey was happy for him.

And there were many more Rey could name, she thought, as she climbed to a quiet hangar outlook balcony, up high and accessible via a spiral staircase. Rose, the rest of them, all were bright, talented people who had given so much to this effort. Rey was as happy for them as she was confused about herself.

As she settled by herself, hanging her legs off the ledge, she stared off above the trees, gazing into the sea of sparkling stars. So many worlds – so many possible places to explore in her quest to find new Jedi trainees. She could shape the order in the way she wanted. She could pick which old rules to keep, and which to let go. The legacy of a thousand generations sat in her hands, ready to be molded. So why did she feel so horrible about carrying the honor?

She stared emptily into the distance, finding it much harder to maintain her good mood when away from the party, but also feeling some relief that she no longer had to put on a happier face than she felt and stop herself from flinching every time someone mentioned Kylo Ren. What had happened to them over the last few days, the way that they exchanged their life forces in healing one another, and the way the Emperor took from them both – a dyad of the Force – she felt like there was a hole within her now. Some big part of herself, gone. Her partner in the Force, gone. 

It was part the truly deep Force connection, which nobody but the two of them could really understand, and part emotional longing. Kissing after he had brought her back; nothing had felt more right. Rey wanted more of that, too. But _should_ she? Hard as it was to admit, much of what Ben had said had been right. He _had_ been responsible for the deaths of every Jedi master and parental figure she had ever had. Granted, they were also his parental figures, but the anguish of losing Han, Luke, Leia, and everyone else who’d perished in the fight up to that point; she remembered how it felt.

And that is not to mention how many nameless others; entire populations, massacred on his orders, or by him himself. It would be hard for others to accept indeed. The Senate’s tribunals would have some questions. Rey shuddered, thinking of the power of the Dark side. The Dark side had made him do all of these things. But he had still done them.

And yet, the Emperor, who created Snoke and sowed all this discord, would not be dead if it hadn’t been for him coming back to help her destroy him. 

Rey wondered briefly if she could try to open their Force connection, just to see how he was doing, but knew it was not what he wanted, nor what was smart. Maybe he was right; creating distance between them was the right thing to do since he’d soon be wanted by the Republic and hated by the galaxy. 

Rey hugged her knees to herself, feeling very, very alone.

She was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she hardly heard someone else ascending the stairs up to her post until they were almost upon her. Startled, she relaxed again when she realized it was just Finn.

“Saw you coming out here,” he said, with a crooked smile. “Care for some company?”

Rey gave him a small smile, scooting over to make some space for him to join her, quietly pleased for some understanding conversation.

“Great party,” she observed more cheerfully than she felt, not knowing quite how else to start.

“Oh, yeah,” Finn said, his smile deepening as he climbed beside her and sat down, leaning his back against the metal fence behind them. “I haven’t felt this happy since…”

“Ever?” Rey asked, breaking into a grin. Finn chuckled, raising one knee and draping his wrist over it.

“Yeah, I think that’s about right.”

They sat in the silence for a minute, looking into the distance. Out of the corner of her eye, Rey could see that Finn turned to look at her.

“Doesn’t seem like you are, though,” he observed quietly, tilting his head slightly in concern. “Do I have that right?”

Rey chewed on her bottom lip, looking at her lap, allowing Finn to fill in the gaps.

“Something happened on Exegol, right? When you were fighting the Emperor… you’re still not ready to talk about it?”

She met his concerned gaze and gave a wordless shake of her head.

“It’s…. not yet. I need to… process some things.”

She didn’t say whether or not “something happened,” but she assumed he’d put together the pieces enough to understand that things lay unresolved for her, despite this victory.

“That’s fair,” Finn said, leaning his head back again. “Guessing that’s what you’re gonna do, after all of this. Process stuff.”

It made Rey chuckle.

“Among other things… new Jedi to train, and all. What are you going to do? I think Poe is going to need help getting all this stuff in order,” she replied, changing the subject as soon as she could.

“Well…” Finn said, after a pause. He looked away for a moment before meeting her gaze again, some cautious excitement in his eyes. “I’m gonna see what I can do on that but… Lando and Janaah are going to go off and try to find out about her family, and origins. And, and I think there’s room for me on that ship.”

“She’s pretty,” Rey remarked, smiling at him, genuinely happy for her friend’s new prospects. Finn looked away in embarrassment but there was a smile playing on his lips.

“She’s like me – she was a Stormtrooper too,” he explained, and Rey’s brows shot up.

“Really?”

"Yeah. Just like me. Pretty crazy. So we have… stuff in common.”

He laughed suddenly, at himself, a genuine laugh. Rey joined in, not sure what was so funny but, appreciating the moment.

“Just…” Finn begn, after he finished laughing, as to explain. “Going to have time for… relationships now. What a weird thought.”

“Yes, as I remember, you aren’t the best flirt.”

Finn blinked, surprised at being reminded of the first time they had met, as Rey chuckled to herself. She patted him on the arm as if to say it was water under the bridge and he joined her smile.

“What about Poe?” Rey said then, voicing a genuine curiosity. “You and him have…”

Finn said nothing, scratching the back of his head, looking more sober now.

“We have some stuff to work out, I guess,” he replied after a moment. “I’m not really sure… where I fit in with him right now. Or this whole thing.” He leaned forward, talking more animatedly now. “Poe’s been doing this whole Resistance thing for way longer than either of us. I’m, well, I hopped in at the last minute.”

“You were an integral part of this fight! You almost died so many times!”  
  
“Well, thanks, Ms. Singlehandedly-defeated-the-Emperor,” Finn teased, and instantly realized he had hit a nerve as Rey’s smile slid off her face.

“Sorry, I…” he muttered after a pause.

“It’s okay,” Rey said quickly, shaking off the shock. “I’ll promise I’ll explain… later.”

It occurred to her that Finn had suffered under the First Order much worse than she had, all things considered, as a Stormtrooper. She wondered how he might react to hearing Ben was still alive, but knew better than to say it. He nodded in understanding, leaving her with the loose strand of conversation. She was not sure where to take it, so stayed silent.

“Come on,” Finn said, lifting an arm and putting it over her shoulder. “This is a night you’re never gonna forget, as long as you live. Let’s go enjoy it.”

Rey nodded, giving him a small smile, and rising to descend back into the hangar. It was a genuine pleasure to share a laugh with her friend.

But she still felt so far from him, and so far from everyone.


	3. Chapter 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi all - sorry for the delay, some stuff came up last night that kept me away from my personal laptop. As promised, here's chapter 3, exploring a bit of our beloved roguish pilot. Next update will be Tuesday; chime in in the comments about what your impressions are so far, I'd love to hear more of them!

The scene at Resistance headquarters when Rey entered the hanger it was chaotic, but boisterous. Member of the corps were everywhere, seemingly half still in uniforms helping with the deconstruction of remaining Resistance assets, half carrying bags of their private effects, clearly on their way to new things. Many were in conversation, arranging shared transports and sharing embraces as they said their farewells. At the center of it all was Poe, calling instructions around to different parties, a tablet under his arm that he checked periodically, marking off logistical information. Deputies came and went from his side in aide.

It was what had consumed the base for the past few days. Rey had pitched in where she could be tried to stay away from having to make any decisions. She carried a bag on her shoulder, the simple rucksack she had been using to carry her meager possessions for some time. Jedi kept things simple on principle, but between the myriad of places she had dwelled since departing Jakku, she’d retained only the barest possessions.

She crossed the busy interior of the hangar, catching snatches of conversation as she went and saying hello where she was greeted, before she made her way over to Poe. When he caught her approaching, he waved and smiled.

“How’s it going?” she called as she approached, putting on a small smile. Poe returned it and raised his eyes to the sky, tilting his head from side to side.

“It’s almost more complicated to dismantle a Resistance than it is to build one…” he remarked with amused sarcasm. Rey chuckled, coming to a stop beside him as they surveyed the area. She turned to smile warmly at him.

“It seems like you’re doing a great job. Leia would have been proud.”

Poe looked down at his feet and then back at her, thankfully.

“I’m glad you think so. What can the Resistance do for _you_ today?”

“I… I think it’s time for me to get going for a bit.”  
Poe eyed her bag for a moment and then looked at her again. He nodded more solemnly

and gestured for her to follow before handing off his tablet and giving some instruction to a nearby deputy.

She followed him to a small room off the main hangar, which was also in a state of some chaos, full of boxes and crates and piles of random objects.

“We, uh… some of Leia’s personal things,” he explained awkwardly, crossing to the back of the room to root around in one of the boxes. “Haven’t had much time… here,”

He turned back to her and held out a hand containing a small leather pouch roughly rectangular in shape that had some weight to it. Curiously, Rey untied the small knot keeping it closed and looked inside, the contents making her give a small start.

“I can’t accept this,” she said, looking back up at him, both of them knowing the pouch contained more money than she had ever had. Poe crossed his arms over his chest and leaned back against the room’s back counter. He shook his head.

“It’s not mine to take back. She… she told me to give it to you in case anything happened to her. I didn’t think to, before but… seems like a good time now.”

Rey looked back down at the pouch, feeling its edge with her fingers and restraining tears. Even after she was gone, Leia was looking out for her.

“Jedi aren’t really supposed to deal in material wealth,” she stammered in a mummer, not sure what else to say.

“Take it. You gotta eat. Buy yourself a new outfit.”

She looked back up at Poe. The corner of his mouth was raised and she smiled back, knowing by now the light linen attire she had been toting around since Jakku was starting to badly need replacing. She tucked the pouch safely into her rucksack.

“Take this too,” Poe said as she had her bag open. He reached into an interior pocket of his jacket and handed her a small, oval shaped device, about the size of Rey’s palm. It had a dull green screen on the front, clearly inactive, and smooth metal along its edges and back, which was inscribed with the Resistance flame.

“We had these made some time ago, in case we… needed to break this thing up for a while. It’s a communicator device. If we have to get everyone back together, we can use it to alert anyone else in the galaxy who has one. It allows us to transmit a distress call and a location for everyone to meet. I’m hoping if won’t be necessary. But, there you go.”

Rey nodded, placing the communicator in her bag. The two had a short discussion about what ship Rey could take, with Poe assuring her she could have quite whatever she liked. Rey considered asking him what was next for him, but all the talk about the future was starting to get to be too much for her. Whatever it would be, she knew he’d be fine at it. And that they’d see each other again.

They walked back out to the main hangar, chatting about the deconstruction process.

“It’ll be a while before the Senate can reform and get back on its feet,” Poe explained, returning to his post with his tablet. “Till then, I’ll be helping coordinate with the reformed New Republic forces.”

He leaned his weight on one leg and looked at her again, with his usual crooked smile. Rey, realizing this was now going to be goodbye for some time, stepped forward and initiated an embrace. They held each other for a few moments, Rey closing her eyes and trying to take mental note of all the small things about her friend she hadn’t had a chance to, like the musky scent of his clothing. She would miss these little sensations.

“Alright, now go say bye to everyone else, or they’ll have my head for not holding you up to do it” he said as they broke apart, smiling at her. “And good luck with… what is it you’re exactly planning?”

“To go buy a new outfit,” Rey said with a smile. He gave her a smirk.

“Take that little droid, D-O. I don’t want you to be alone. And… I’m not sure what else to do with him.”

Rey looked around, spotting the familiar roundness of BB8 zooming around the hangar in the distance, closely followed by his little companion. It _would_ be useful to have a droid on hand.

“As long as BB8 doesn’t get lonely.”

“Are you kidding? He’s got me!”

Rey grinned at Poe, slinging her bag higher onto her shoulder.

“Best of luck with him,” she said, shifting her weight. “And with everything.”

Poe gave her a nod.

"You too. Don’t be a stranger.”

Rey nodded back and turned, knowing she had to force herself to end the conversation soon before she began to get too emotional. As she took a few steps away, she heard her name again.

"Hey, Rey?”

Poe had called out to her. She turned, looking at him again expectantly. He took a few looks around and quickly crossed the space between them, speaking his next in a lower, more serious tone.

“Look, I know you’re not ready to talk about… everything but, I should ask… _is there anything I need to know?_ ”

He looked deeply into her eyes with his steely dark ones, looking quite serious, but concerned. Rey summoned her Jedi trained serenity to continue to hold her own and not give anything away. It was too soon to explain. Revealing the truth about the fight would just create more chaos, at that moment, when the galaxy was stumbling back to normalcy, alongside everyone in the Resistance.

“This won’t be the last you’ll see of me,” Rey said, evenly and firmly, keeping eye contact. “I’ll explain it all. Later. But everything is going to be fine.”

Poe didn’t look like he fully believed her. It would have been hurtful if he hadn’t been completely justified in doing so.

“Is it?” he said finally. Rey gave a slow nod. She reached out a hand and placed it on his shoulder.

"May the Force be with you.”

And with that, she turned again, heading back out toward her unplanned future, and leaving Poe watching her retreating back with a mixture of concern, admiration, and wonder.

\---

Rey brought her ship low over the edge of a town in the distance. It was the late afternoon, with the sun dipping over the horizon. Soon, it would be night, and she’d need to find a place to spend it, but as everything else in her life right now, she decided to make it up as she went along.

Saying her goodbyes to everyone and preparing to leave had taken most of the day on Ajan Kloss. Most had had the sense to not bother asking where she was going, which Rey was grateful for. Some goodbyes were harder than others. She had quietly wiped away more than one tear.

Settling down the ship, powering it off and disembarking, Rey slung her rucksack over her shoulder, now slightly heavier with her newly acquired currency and communicator. She was on Cantarwall, a quiet nearby planet full of small towns and empty countryside where she could lay low for the time being and stock up on provisions. The area where she had landed was full of rolling plains and thick grass with rocky soil. In the distance, low mountains rose over a clouded sky. Small stone dwellings and homesteads intermittently interrupted the scenery, but Rey turned her attention to the town in the distance, a collection of humble, but warm looking buildings.

“Come on,” she told D-O as she began to trudge down the hill, heading towards a road a few yards away, which would lead her straight into the heart of town. Beeping happily, he met her at her side. She was grateful for the company.

They walked for some time through the countryside, coming along more and more dwellings as they came closer to the center of commerce in the area. Signs of the First Order’s demise were present – a pile of First Order ship wreckage, now scavenged junk, sat at the side of the road, a First Order poster defaced and ripped in half on the side of a building. She wondered how these people’s lives had changed since everything had ended.

Rey walked through the winding, narrow streets of the town for a while before coming along a wider one, a sort of thoroughfare square with a circular fountain in the center like there was a the Jakku trading posts. People walked to and fro, pushing carts of agricultural products, or bags of shopping, stopping to chat here and there. In one corner, a cloaked alien happily played a flute like instrument in exchange for coins from passersby. With D-O rolling along beside, Rey stalked the edge of the square until she located a shop with clothing in the window. She instructed D-O to wait outside and entered.

She found it refreshingly quiet inside. The tall-ceilinged room of the shop was full of racks of clothes in different sizes, filling up most of the floors and walls. Music played softly out of a box in the corner.

“Good afternoon, miss,” the voice of a shop assistant said from Rey’s left. She was a medium height alien, near-human except with light green skin, a bald head and a flat, slit like nose. “Human?”

Rey nodded, not sure where to start.

“I’m looking for uh, something functional,” she said vaguely, slightly overwhelmed by the racks of different sorts of clothing ranging in ornamentation.

“There should be some things to your right against the wall that should suffice, and perhaps you’d be interested in a coat or cloak for night time and cold?”

Rey thanked her quickly and crossed over to a series of shelves against one wall, populated by neat stacks of plain shirts and pants, which is exactly what she had been looking for. She selected a few pieces in a light grey, a belt, and a jacket.

The shop assistant was setting up a changing room for her as she turned back.

“Limited time sale on everything, miss,” she said cheerfully as Rey approached. “Good day to buy.”

“What’s the occasion?” Rey said, just to be make smalltalk.

The assistant gave her a big, warm smile.

“The end of the First Order, of course,” she said more softly. Rey felt silly that she hadn’t put two and two together and nodded quickly, offering a smile back before she entered the changing room with her things, closing the screen behind her.

She was in a small circular room with a long mirror, which she turned away from. Mirrors were not something she had access to much of in her life on Jakku, so much that seeing her own reflection unnerved her. She didn’t have room in her difficult life to be self-conscious or care too much about how she presented herself. Silently stripping off the layers of her linen clothing, she surveyed the remaining bruises on her nearly nude body. It made her remember the feeling of being held closely by another, a feeling that felt quite far away now.

Shaking away the thought and pulling the new clothing over herself, Rey turned to look in the mirror. She pushed her arms through the sleeves of the jacket and shrugged it on, pulling it down to fit. She took stock of her reflection. It was not often she considered her appearance. She had always styled herself for practicality, from her clothes to her hairstyle. Whatever would keep her alive.

Reaching up, she loosened the ties keeping her hair in its usual three buns and let it fall around her face. It landed in gentle waves created by the way she wrapped it, brushing the rim of her face. She stroked and adjusted it slightly, unused to the feeling of trying to make it look purposefully nice, purposefully _pretty_. Her mind cast to the racks of dresses elsewhere in the store, the display cases of gold rings and jewelry. They were nothing she could have ever imagine herself in before. It was dangerous to imagine, now, she knew it.

But she did all the same.

“I’ll take all of it,” Rey said, after she exited the changing room, having stashed her old clothing in her rucksack. The assistant was waiting at her checkout counter, ready to take Rey’s money. Before she crossed to her, Rey paused.

She looked over to the racks of plain shirts. Making up her mind quickly and acting on her impulse before she could talk herself out of it, she walked over to a pile of plain white men’s shirts and lifted one. Feeling a pang in her heart, she picked three of the largest size and stuck them under her arm, crossing back to the check out.

“Know any good places around here to take a room for the night?”


	4. Chapter 4

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Next chapter coming Friday. *Serious* TW for discussions/imagery of suicide in this chapter. I promise it lightens up after this, lol.

_Rey was walking along a gently sloping road along a beautiful series of cliffs that were high over a calm ocean. The grass around the path grew thick and was dotted with flowers, a few sweet furry creatures jumping through it here and there. The sky above was bright blue and lightly dappled with clouds. She herself was wearing a clean white dress that fell to her knees, cinched at the waist with a belt, and with loose billowing sleeves. It exposed the tops of her shoulders, which were tickled by her loose hair._

_Rey walked this way for a sometime, the sun warming her skin, before she began to approach a large dwelling sitting near the cliff’s edge. It was a glorious looking home, multiple stories with large windows and whitewash walls with gold accents. Flowers bloomed in a garden outside the front door, adding touches of color. There was a big shed in the back, which had various ship parts and construction detritus around the entrance. Without pausing, Rey crossed to the front door of the expansive house and let herself in._

_She was in a high ceilinged entrance foyer with a spiral staircase leading up to a second level. To her right, she could hear a conversation between two people. She crossed into an inviting sitting room full of fine, comfortable furniture and elegant rugs, where Chewbacca and Han Solo were engaged in a game of holochess, seated across from each other on stools._

_“You scoundrel…” Han said in his gruff voice, rubbing his chin as he stared at the board of projections. He looked up at Rey, giving her a crooked smile. “I swear, he cheats.”_

_Chewbacca growled in protest. Feeling herself giggle, Rey crossed back into the foyer and down past the staircase, where she could hear activity in a room on the left. Rey stepped into the doorway of a study, the windows in which were open to let in the sun and ocean breeze._

_Leia was seated at a beautiful desk toward the back, surrounded by a collection of books and notes, clearly involved in some serious business. The walls around her covered in pictures of her with various important people and panoramic photos of various planets. The biggest photo was of the palace in Alderaan, Leia’s home planet, before its destruction. Leia looked up at Rey, giving her a warm smile. Her hair was tucked high on her head in one of the elegant styles she usually wore it in, and she was dressed in a spangled blue tunic._

_"Always work to catch up on…” she explained, before glancing out the window. “I think he’s outside.”_

_Rey gave her a nod of thanks and crossed back into the foyer. A passage to the right led down to another door, which had its own window. Beyond it, she could see snatches of the sea. She crossed the passage and opened the door, finding herself facing an expanse of grass that ended at the cliff’s edge._

_There was a figure sitting cross legged there, facing the ocean. Closer inspection would reveal that he was actually hovering a few inches above the ground. It was the broad shoulders and long frame of a man in a white shirt, which billowed slightly in the ocean breeze. He had dark hair that fell to his shoulders, similarly gently moved by the wind. He appeared absolutely still as he stared into the expanse of the sea, shimmering within the light of the sun, which illuminated him in an almost mystical way._

_The moment Rey took a step out into the grass toward him, the man ended his hovering and fell gently back to earth, revealing that he was barefoot. He climbed to his feet as Rey walked up toward him and turned to him._

_Ben Solo was smiling at her now, standing with his weight on one foot as she approached, looking serene and handsome as the breeze rippled his hair. She crossed the space between them and walked into his arms, which he wrapped around her waist. She reached her arms up and tucked them around his neck, looking up into his eyes, which were trained upon her face._

_“You’re the most beautiful thing in the galaxy,” he murmured to her. Rey returned the compliment with a smile. Ben, looking enchanted, tilted his head, and brought it down to meet her lips._

Rey bolted upright in the bed in which she was laying. She had been having a dream – such a dream – that felt so real it seemed to physically hurt to wake from it. Instantly, she knew she was not feeling right. A feeling; something in the Force. There was trouble. Ben was in trouble.

\---

She was indeed correct that Ben was in trouble. But not from a source she may have guessed. Back on Tatooine, Ben Solo was pacing, thinking of the most convenient way to kill himself.

He had woken from the most wonderful, real feeling dream he may have ever had. Most of Ben’s dreams since his turn to the Dark had begun were nightmares. Nightmares fueled by his own fear, self-doubt, loathing and confusion. But this one was unlike anything he’d ever experienced. And it ending may have been worse than any nightmare.

In this dream, he walked around a gorgeous house by the sea, where he had met his own parents, who had greeted him with welcoming and love, along with his father’s best friend, Chewbacca. He had explored the elegant dwelling that was their home before stepping outside to the edge of a cliff, where he had come across a stunning ocean. There, he sat to meditate for some time, feeling utterly at peace. Toward the end of the dream, Rey had emerged out of the house. She was an absolute vision; more beautiful than he had ever imagined, in a white dress that showed off her soft, glowing skin with her warm brown hair loose around her face. She crossed to him, taking him in her arms like he’d secretly fantasized about before. He’d complimented her radiance and leaned down to kiss her – there was nothing he wanted to do more in that moment.

And then he had woken up.

Instantly, he realized it was all just a dream – but it wasn’t just any fantasy. This was a punishment; a demonstration of what could have been if he had not decided to turn to the Dark. He could have had two doting parents, a beautiful, peaceful home and a woman who loved him. His troubled mind at that moment conveniently forgot that his parents own incessant marital strife, his father’s delinquency, and his mother’s overbearing celebrity, all played a role in making him more vulnerable to the Dark. But all he could think about at that moment is all he had destroyed, for himself, and for others.

He’d dragged himself out of bed, where he had been lying for most of the last two days, and stumbled out of the small farm dwelling into the desert night. Compared to the day, Tatooine nights were cold and windy, and if you went out too far, dangerous. Feeling wide awake and not knowing what else to do, barefoot Ben began to pace back and forth across the cold sandy ground of the compound, like he used to do on the First Order bases.

There was no scenario he could think of where he was not better off dead. It would be better for the galaxy – everyone he hurt could feel vindicated that the murderer was himself dead. There would no longer be any remnant of the dark side to rally around. It would be better for Rey – she would no longer have to be burdened by keeping his secret. She could move on with her life. And he would no longer have to live with the guilt of all that he had done.

Thinking of Rey, his heart felt a pang of anguish. He had managed to control his secret, conflicted longing for her, but once he assumed the mantle of Ben Solo again, he’d given into the moment of victory and kissed her. It was the greatest feeling he had ever felt - and one he knew he never deserved to feel again.

He thought of how to do he could do it – end it once and for all. He could climb up somewhere high and jump off, of course. He’d need to find a good place to do to that though, which was hard in this stretch of flat desert land. There was always riding a speeder into the desert until it broke down and letting himself die of thirst…

He walked around and around, for an impossible to measure amount of time, until his feet felt numb from the cold. But punishing himself felt right. The guilt on his shoulders felt like a huge boulder, bearing down, down, down. He’d almost destroyed everything. He had no future. He’d killed the last two people who had tried to save him. He didn’t deserve the last one who cared. As he was reliving of the horrible ways he had rid the galaxy of his mother and father, an idea came to him.

His saber. Yes – the only personal effect in his possession. He could take himself out the same way that Rey had taken him out, except this time she wouldn’t be around to save him. Yes, it could work well – it would be quick, painful, but it would end him quickly. He quickly turned the domed entrance to the farm dwelling, single-minded in his resolve now.

He managed to find it and fumbling around in the dark, stepped back outside. Looking up, he made a snap decision to climb to the top of the dome. That way if the saber somehow didn’t kill him, the fall would finish the job. Climbing came easy for the athletic ex Jedi Knight, and he made it to the top of the dome, where he quickly got to his feet.

He looked at the saber in his long fingered hands, the saber he once thought was rightfully his, enraged by the thought of it wielded by Rey. But now he wanted nothing to do with it – this would make sure of that. He deserved to die by its blade. Ben turned its end toward himself and considered where to aim it. Stomach? Head? He decided on his heart.

Holding his saber over his chest, Ben looked into the distance, at the millions of stars that pierced the horizon. The wind blew his hair away from his face and he took a deep breath, feeling it chill the inside of his lungs.

None of it would matter soon.

“ _BEN!_ ”

Suddenly, an astonishing sound. Ben recognized that voice, but could not believe it could be real. He whipped his body around toward the source of the sound, which simultaneously caused him to lose his balance. He lost his footing on the slippery dome and with a shout, found himself tumbling off and into thin air. He hit the ground back first and his head smacked into the sand, instantly fading everything to black.

Rey watched in horror as Ben, who had been standing stock still on the domed roof of the farm dwelling, turned quickly to her – too quickly. It all happened so fast; before she could catch her breath he was on the ground in a crumpled heap. Rey let out a cry of her own before running at top speed toward where he’d landed, her heart pounding in her chest.

Throwing herself down to her knees, she placed her hands on his shoulder and pulled it around so he lay on his back. He head was lying on its side, his eyes closed. She verified his breathing and his heart by pressing her ear to his chest, and gingerly pressed her fingers to the back of her head. They came back smattered with some blood. But closer inspection indicated that the wound was not too big. Steadying herself, Rey leaned over him and picked his head up with both hands. She took a deep breath and thought to herself. _Heal_. She stared into his face, every cell in her body praying for it to work.

It did the trick. Exhaling sharply, Rey lay his head down again and sat back on her heels, She was still breathing heavily after having to run and use her energy to heal him, but her adrenaline was coursing. She knew that this coupled with the fact that it was the middle of the night meant that she would soon become quite exhausted indeed, but was still too disturbed by what she had seen to entertain the notion of sleep.

And then there was her ship. So distracted and concerned was she on her way over to Tatooine, she had almost crashed. Her landing was a mess – she’d almost killed herself in the process, but hadn’t lingered to long on it. She jumped out of the ship and tore toward the Lars farm, feeling a sense of urgency that turned out to be right on target.

The sight of Ben standing on the building top, holding his saber handle over his chest, had caused her blood to feel like it had turned to ice. The thought of what he was planning on doing with it disturbed her immensely. She knew she had but seconds, and did the only thing she could do – scream out his name.

With her knees still sitting in the cold Tatooine sand, Rey tucked her loose hair behind her ears. She’d need to move his body inside which would take energy and concentration, and both those things were a struggle right now. She got to her feet and lifted her arms, holding her palms open next to his body. She hated the way he looked, crumpled in the sand like he did. It was a horrible thought, and obviously inaccurate… but he looked dead.

Rey pushed it away and Force levitated Ben’s body off the ground, moving slowly toward the door to the entrance of the subterranean home. She brought his body through the main living area, long since unlived in, and down the stairs to one of the subterranean bedrooms where she had stayed earlier, preparing a bed and a stash of provisions. Feeling her body grow weaker with the length of the task, she lowered him as gently as possible onto the bed.

Once he was safely ensconced there, she dropped to the floor on her knees, hanging her head with exhaustion. Pressing her hands over her eyes, she tried to talk herself down. _It was going to be fine, she stopped him, she saved him…_ She didn’t know how long she sat like this, trying to reassure herself and calm down.

Unfortunately, there was still business to take care of before she could curl up on the floor and sleep away the bad thoughts – and the little problem with her ship. She rose and exited the room, climbing the stairs and exiting the dwelling, trudging back up toward her ship, internally dreading what she would fine. D-O greeted her, chirping inquisitively.

Rey examined the damage on the ship. There was some damage to the nose for sure, which had crushed some of the electronics near the front. It was too dark to tell if the damage was particularly serious or not. She rubbed her face with her hands again, sighing.

“We’re staying here for a… a bit,” she told D-O after she stood there for a while, faltering at the end. It was enough for the droid, however, who followed her back after she had picked up her now much fuller bag from the bed of the ship. It contained her newly acquired provisions, clothes, and personal effects. When they came back to the dwelling, D-O powered down in the living area. Rey put her bag down in the only piece of furniture left in the living space, a big plain table. As she was rummaging around, she remembered the men’s white shirts she had gotten at the store earlier.

Picking one up, she walked slowly back to the room where she had left Ben, quietly fearful that he could be awake, or worse, had taken the chance to run away. The concerns were unfounded, however, as he was still lying in the same position. Rey crossed the room toward him, stopping to turn on an dim old lantern in the corner, illuminating the small room, which was barren with earthen walls.

The shirt Ben wore was indeed the same one she had burned a lightsaber hole in, black and now covered in dirt from his fall. Rey sat herself on the edge of the bed and gently worked the shirt off of his body, exposing the pale, muscular form of his shoulders and chest, where her eyes lingered for a moment. She patiently unfolded the new shirt and manipulated it over his arms and shoulders, bringing it down over his torso. His feet, she noticed, were bare, so she pulled the crumpled blanket from the foot of the bed and pulled it up to his chest.

Finished with her task, she maintained her perch on the edge of the bed in silence. Some small part of her wanted to lay down join him in the bed, wrapping her arms around his chest and digging herself into his side. She pushed it away and allowed herself to reach out a hand to gently brush the hair off of his forehead and cheeks. Without his hair hanging in it, Ben looked more peaceful and innocent. Rey could see pick out which features he got from which of his parents and how much more _normal_ he looked without the scar that had long since bisected his face.

She remembered the dream, which now felt like she had woken up from it years ago. It was like seeing a snatch of some brief alternate version of reality. Darkly, she realized if Ben had never risen up in the way that he had, she would still likely be stuck on Jakku, doomed to a dead end life. Or would she?

Still, being briefly seduced by a paradise-like vision of a world where Han, Leia, Luke and the rest of them all lived, and she was… together with Ben? It was as sweet as it was painful. Rey wasn’t quite sure if she wanted to lie down and have the dream all over again, or to never have another like it.

Rey rose and crossed to the small closet where she had stashed an extra bedroll, and retrieved it, laying it on the other end of the room, parallel to Ben’s own bed. She turned off the lantern, again darkening the room, and curled up on the bedroll, closing her eyes.

Sleep came quicker than she expected, and she was grateful for it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Ahh, dream sequences. You beautiful old thing.


	5. Chapter 5

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'll be posting the rest of the chapters every day from today onward.

It didn’t take Finn long to clean out his bunk room at the Ajan Kloss Resistance base. His roommate, another Resistance fighter named Jool, had already left, returning to his homeworld like many others in their number. Soon the room would be completely empty, much as their whole base would be.

The task of supervising the formal dissolution of the First Order was left to the reforming Republic forces – the Resistance didn’t have the resources to do it all themselves. Besides, the majority of the commanding officer corps had been killed on Exegol, along with a sizeable amount of the ground troops. As a former Stormtrooper himself, Finn knew there would be many troopers abandoning their posts now and trying to re-enter society. He chuckled to himself as he imagined some sort of former Stormtrooper support group that he had Jannah could form.

Finn was leaned over his the bag that he had sitting on his bed, busy with the zipper, when a voice in the doorway crept up on him.

“You’re really leaving, huh?”

He quickly turned around to find out its source. He had been too wrapped up in his thoughts of Jannah to have heard the footsteps of the approaching Poe, who now stood in the doorway, leaning his shoulder against it with his arms crossed over his chest. He looked his usual rugged, boyish, handsome self.

“Yeah,” Finn said, clearing his throat awkwardly. He turned back and finished the zipper on his bag and placed it on the ground, then faced Poe again. “Lando is coming to pick me up tonight.”

“Right,” Poe said, looking down for a second then back up to catch his gaze. He raised an arm to scratch at his chin. “With… what was her name again?”

"Jannah,” Finn replied, trying to keep any coldness out of his voice. “She went back to gather her group. We’re all headed out together.”

“It’ll be a lot of work to find all your people…”

It was a strange sort of observation to make. The tension in the room them seemed to dial up a bit as they looked at each other, trying to decipher the other’s intention.

“Probably, but we’ve all got a lot of time on our hands now, don’t we?”

Poe nodded slowly, looking away again. Finn got the strong sense that there was something Poe wanted to say. Finn stepped back to lean slightly on the edge of his bed. There had been some tension between them since the revelation about the Emperor, exacerbated by the revelation that Poe had been previously employed as a smuggler, which he had failed to disclose earlier. The strange confrontation on Kijimi showed Finn there was a lot more to the clever, charismatic pilot than he knew.

“I thought…” Poe began slowly, continuing to look away. He raised his eyes again to meet Finn’s but seemed to change his mind about speaking, giving a sharp exhale and a short shake of his head.

"You thought what?” Finn goaded, trying not to let his temper rise. He was prepared to be interrogated on why he was skipping planet so soon after it was all over. Some people were more ready to be done with this fight than others. But he had been so caught up in Jannah and Lando’s plans, the adventure, and the deep desire within him to find out about his past, that he was ready to leave everything to find out.

Poe was silent for a minute and then opened his mouth to speak, sounding more openly frustrated now.

“This is just a damn lot of work and I was expecting you to stay here and help me more, help guide everything. People are looking to me for leadership – I asked you for help, and you agreed. And now you’re just heading off, with someone we barely know?”

“She almost gave her life to save everyone!” Finn retorted, feeling his hands clamp inward. “We’re both – you don’t get it. Our entire identities started and ended with the First Order. That’s gone now. We want to find out what we were before that.”

“The work isn’t over though!” Poe replied loudly, throwing up his hands. “I need all the help I can get – wars don’t just end after the last fight!”

“There’s plenty of people who are much better suited to help than I am.”

Finn was defensive now, feeling some guilt from Poe’s words.

“Right…” Poe said in a low voice, looking away with his brows furrowed. “Right. So this has nothing to do with… with me.”

This shut Finn up for some time. Feeling his face grow warm, he reached up an arm to rub the back of his neck, looking away. Poe, looking similarly unhappy, gave a sigh. He rubbed his face.

“I’m sorry,” he said after there had been silence for a few moments. “I shouldn’t have come in here to just… berate you on the night you’re leaving. This is just, it’s just more than I thought it would be and with Rey gone now…”

He trailed off. Crossing the room, he sat down on the other end of Finn’s bed, leaning forward on his knees and clasping his hands together.

“I remember the first time I met her so clearly,” he continued, obviously lost in memories. “And you.”

“I’d still just be FN-2187 if it wasn’t for you,” Finn said, a small smile coming to his lips.

"Oh, yeah…”

Poe smiled now too, still looking at the ground.

“A lot’s happened since then, I kind of forgot.”

Finn gave a short, almost bitter chuckle.

“Did you expect it to be easy, or something – all this ending?” he asked, the question aimed both at Poe and at himself, really.

“I didn’t expect to live to see the end.” Poe admitted quietly. There was more silence. Then Poe raised his head and looked at him, his brows knitted in quizzical concern. “Hey, did you notice something… did you notice how much Rey’s was… well, she didn’t seem really _right_.”

“Something happened,” Finn replied quickly, relieved he wasn’t the only one to notice. Poe raised his hand and gestured it down as if to say “ _Right?_ ”

“I don’t like that I don’t know what it is.”

“I wanna think that if there’s something she’s not telling us,” Finn began, thinking of his dear friend. “There’s a good reason for that. Her… she hasn’t been wrong yet.”

“I’m gonna miss that girl so damn much,” Poe muttered. He gave Finn a sad look. “And I’m going to miss you. To think days ago, when this was all over and we were… I just didn’t expect we’d all be separated so soon after. I thought we’d…”

He trailed off, continuing to look at Finn. The feeling that had pulled Finn closer and closer toward Poe in the past bubbled up in Finn’s heart.

“What _did_ you see for us?” Finn said in a quiet voice. He wasn’t sure if he meant the three of them, or just himself and Poe. He watched the enticing sort of way Poe parted his lips before he spoke.

Just as it appeared that Poe was about to speak, the intercom at Finn’s door crackled to life, the voice of another Resistance operative coming through it.

" _Finn, Lando’s ship just arrived_.”

The sound had made them both look up and revealed that they had been subtly leaning in toward each other without knowing it. Finn quickly got to his feet and activated the button next to the com box.

“Great, thanks for letting me know, I’ll be there in a minute,” he said into it, trying to sound as normal as possible despite the upheaval he had just felt.

"Your ride awaits,” Poe observed, standing back up. The awkwardness was back. Finn gave a quick nod. He crossed back over to pick up his bag.

“I’ll be around again, I – I promise.”

Poe looked down and stuck a hand in his jacket pocket.

“Yeah, good,” he said, heading back over toward the door. “Good luck with the whole… with your thing.”

Finn didn’t want him to leave so quickly but was unsure what else he could do to salvage the interaction.

“I’m sorry,” he blurted out, unclear what exactly he was apologizing for. For leaving so soon? For picking Jannah over Poe? His face grew warm again.

Poe turned to give him a crooked smile and waved his hand in dismissal.

“Take care of yourself out there.”

And with those words and nary another look at Finn, he exited the room, departing down the hallway. Finn was left standing there, a hand holding the strap of his bag and watching the space where Poe had just been, a confused jumble of emotions turning over in his head, and in his heart.

Back on Tatooine, Rey was stirring and slowly waking up. She rolled from her side on her bedroll to her back, only starting to assemble the memories from the previous night. Her eyes widened and she gave a sharp inhale when she finally remembered it all. She quickly rose on her elbows to look over to the other side of the room, her breath quickening when she found the bed there empty. Hopping to her feet and quickly tossing her hair back into knot, Rey moved quickly up the steps to the living area.

She stopped instantly in the doorway, because she was confronted by the sight of Ben sitting at the plain table, holding his head in his large palms, which were obscuring his face. His long hair was damp, like he had just washed it, and he was still wearing the white shirt Rey had placed on him. His shoulder blades jutted sharply out as he leaned over the table, looking consumed.

“How’s your head?” she said after a long pause. Ben quickly rose from his hands and whipped his head around to look at her, which appeared to make it wince.

“Tender,” he said in his husky voice, looking at her with a slightly pained expression. Not knowing how to respond or proceed, Rey crossed the room and pulled out the chair across the table from his, sitting down. She lay her crossed arms on the table before her, loosely covering one hand with the other.

They looked at each other for a few moments, sitting in silence. There was pain and exhaustion behind Ben’s eyes, like he didn’t know what to do with the sight of her. After a moment, he broke the silence.

“I don’t… I don’t remember what happened last night,” he said quietly. Rey was quiet, wondering what to say in response. The truth was painful to admit.

“You were standing on top of this building,” Rey replied, her voice sounding somewhat empty. “You had a lightsaber… you were holding it over your heart. And then you slipped off and hit your head.”

Ben stared at her hands before him, processing what she had said. He looked up at her again.

“Why did you come back?”

“I felt something was wrong. I think… it may be our connection.”

Neither still fully understood how it all worked. Ben returned to staring vaguely at her hands, darkness in his face. Rey pulled them back closer to herself and began self-consciously pick at one of her nails. She tilted her head and took the moment to ask a question that had been on her mind. 

“Why didn’t you ever kill me?” she asked, watching Ben. “You had so many chances to, when I was in your ship, before Snoke… there were so many chances.”

“I thought I saw your future,” he replied. “I thought we’d… you’d turn towards my side. Why didn’t you… ever give up on trying to turn me to yours?”

“Because I thought I saw _your_ future!” Rey said with some force. The situation would have been funny it if were not for the dark circumstances. They looked at each other for a few more moments in silence, pondering the other.

“You were my equal. You are.” Ben said quietly. “The Force decided it. I couldn’t… I couldn’t sever the connection.”

“But the others… you managed to get rid of,” Rey began awkwardly, trying to dance around referencing the death of Han Solo directly, but meaning that particular event. Ben shook his head, not seeming phased.

“Nobody affected me like you did. That’s why you came back here, too.”

He licked his lips and looked back down at her hands again, continuing to speak more quickly now. “I can’t pretend to understand all the mysteries of the Force. Part of why I… joined the Dark side was because I thought they could control it more. There were secrets they had that the Light would never tell me. But I was wrong – I was a fool. All they know is how to manipulate the Force to create pain more effectively. Neither side truly knows. Luke taught me to respect the fact that I would never know everything, and I refused to. I wanted to be the master of it – _arrogance_. The Force showed us both different futures for the other that we both believed in. How could anyone explain that?”  
  
“Maybe the future isn’t ever truly decided,” Rey posited slowly. “And our choices select which version becomes real. Maybe… relying too much on what we saw was the arrogant thing.”

“Maybe.” Ben said quietly, still looking down. Rey pondered silently for a while.

“So the Force connects us both directly…” she began. “And you still want us to be apart.”

Ben’s brows furrowed and he looked down into his lap.

“It’s more complicated than that,” he said finally. “In a perfect world… well, it’s not a perfect world.”

Rey thought back to the dream she’d had, of the beautiful house by the sea and the way it felt to be held by him, the breeze and his touch on her exposed skin…

“It’s not,” she murmured darkly, feeling pained by the thought. She placed one palm onto the table, slightly closer to him, vaguely rubbing the roughness of the table with her thumb, thinking abstractly of how young Luke may have sat at it himself.

Ben was staring at her hand again, seemingly particularly focused on watching her thumb move. Looking at him, she paused and gently turned her hand over so her palm faced up and her fingers curled slightly inward, inviting him to take her hand. It reminded her of the first time they had touched hands through the Force, when she was still with Luke. Her heart had pounded as she had reached forward that first time, wanting to see if it was possible, wanting to push her own boundaries of the Force use – pulled, undeniably, toward him. The pull hadn’t abated since then.

He looked up at her and his lips parted, and he gave a quick shake of his head.

“I can’t touch you again,” he said softly. “I can’t.”

“I already did last night,” Rey replied breathlessly, feeling her heart quickening. “Where do you think you got that shirt?”

Ben looked down at his shirt, like he was noticing it for the first time.

“Thank you,” he choked, looking himself over like he had on a new body, feeling the sleeve of the shirt with one arm before putting his hand back on the table.

“You’re on the light side now,” Rey replied, her eyes still holding him eagerly. “You needed something different.”

“Right. And for… helping me last night.”

Rey looked him in the eyes, her resolve set. His eyes were slightly wider now, less pained and more anxious.

“Like you said. I never gave up on you.”

Her hand still not having been picked up, Rey reached out her hand and gently brushed her fingers against Ben’s pale ones. He didn’t flinch back – it was a momentary truce between them. She slid her fingers over the edge of his hand and held it, closing her eyes and allowing herself, for a few moments, to imagine they were living in a perfect world, instead of that one.


	6. Chapter 6

Rey and Ben spent the remainder of the morning trying to fix Rey’s ship. It became clear that the damage was worse than she had thought. A critical part of the wiring in the nose had been crushed upon impact and the ship would not work properly without it. It seemed totally resistant to Rey’s many creative attempts to salvage it.

“We need parts,” she said finally, frustrated after giving up on her last attempt to repair the issue. Ben, who was standing a few feet away, resting his arm on another part of the ship, looked up at her.

“Where would we get those out _here_?” he asked, squinting into the barren distance with his brows furrowed.

The two of them had reached a quiet, uneasy truce since that morning, neither willing to openly confront the biggest issue between them, namely that of where each was going to go next. Each focused on fixing the issue of Rey’s ship, knowing that if they were unable to fix it, they would both be stuck there. The small, comforting hand touch from earlier was just that, a small physical acknowledgement of gratitude or relief on the part of the other. Each had pulled away relatively quickly.

Rey sat down on a nearby rock, wiping the sweat off her forehead.

“There’s a spaceport not too far from here. It’s not a really friendly place but, they should have what we need. We can take the speeder.”

She looked up at Ben.

“Do you think you’ll be recognized?”

He continued to look into the distance before looking back down at her.

“I wore the mask for a reason.”

Rey nodded slowly. She still preferred that nobody were to know they were there - she had no idea who they’d run into. Thinking back to her days on Jakku, she got an idea.

Rey placed a large, square piece of linen in Ben’s hands and reached for her own.

“Fold it like this,” she instructed, folding one corner down to create a large triangle. “Then put it on like this.”

She placed the triangle on her head and draped two points over her shoulders, pulling one side a little longer. She tucked the shorter side under her chin and to the side of her face, then wrapped the longer side over her nose and mouth. The two points met behind her left ear and she tied them into a knot.

“Old desert smuggler trick. Also useful if you want to hide your face for other reasons,” she explained, voice slightly muffled by the fabric.

“This is what you wore on Jakku,” Ben remarked, fumbling slightly with the motion. He kept messing up the length of the ends, either making the longer one too short or too tight. Giving a small smile, Rey reached up and gently took the ends from him, sliding into the well-practiced motion to tie it perfectly. She nodded as she stood up on her toes slightly to complete the knot, her fingers brushing the angular edges of his face.

“It’s a tough place,” she explained. “You adapt, or die.”

Ben watched her as she finished the task, only his dark, troubled eyes visible. He gave a small sigh, looking down as she put her arms back down.

“What?” Rey said curiously.

“You had nothing,” Ben began. “And still you were never tempted to be turned to the Dark. I had everything, and I threw it away anyway.”

“It was Snoke,” she said quickly. “And the Emperor. They took advantage of you.”

“I let them.”

He stared into the distance, seeming to ruminate on it for a minute then looked back at her. Rey, not knowing what else to say, swung her leg over the speeder and pulled her face and head wrap higher over her nose. She felt the vehicle buckle slightly with the added weight of Ben as he joined her. Instantly, she became aware of the warmth of his body so closely.

“You’re going to want to hold on,” she said, turning her head slightly behind her. Ben seemed to pause, and then she felt his hands slide over to grasp her torso, right above her hips. She allowed herself to look down to see the way his hands looked on her body. The sight was pleasing.

Taking a breath, she looked back up and set the vehicle in motion and the two of them zooming across the arid Tatooine emptiness.

Much like the rest of Tatooine, the spaceport of Mos Eisley had stayed much the same throughout the decades. Despite the various wars and power struggles within the galaxy, it retained its reputation for being a throughway for various elicit trade operations, a rally point for roguish pilots, and a power base for galaxy gangsters. One could find a wealth of resources there, if they knew where to look and who to bribe.

Though it took some time to get there from their base on the old moisture farm, it was not too hard for Rey and Ben to find the parts they were looking for to repair Rey’s ship, thanks to the generous funds left to Rey by Leia. They kept to themselves as they walked the streets of the town. All the buildings within it were the same sand washed stone, giving the place a hazy look and making it easy to get lost. The suns were starting to set when they finished their search.

They were heading back to towards their docked speeder, Ben carrying their parts in a bag on his shoulder, when Rey glanced out of the corner of her eye into a window of a nearby establishment – a cantina. What she saw caused her to stop in her tracks.

“ _Poe?_ ” she said in surprise to herself. Ben, behind her, stopped and looked at her, brows raised. Rey turned and took a step closer, hearing an undeniably familiar voice floating out of a window bay that she swore she had just seen the familiar form of Poe Dameron leaning on, inside. His voice was raised slightly, talking in a slurred sort of way in a language she didn’t understand to figures she couldn’t see. Rey and Ben met eyes, both getting the feeling there was something going on.

“Come on,” she said in an undertone, brows furrowed as she headed for the entrance to the cantina, determined to know why the Resistance pilot turned leader would end up in a scum hole like this one.

The inside of the cantina teemed with activity. Customers of all shapes and species milled around the long, rectangular bar with its droid tender, talking and drinking enthusiastically. Some sat at booths along the walls, having discussions in more hushed tones, faces covered with cloaks and masks.

“Stay here for a minute,” she told Ben as they approached the bar. He put the bag of parts on it and sat down on a vacant stool, giving her a small nod. He adjusted his face covering so that as little of his face was as visible as possible as he looked around, scrunching down slightly. Rey cleared her throat, looking around as well, and pulled the lower part of her covering down so that Poe would recognize her.

She spotted him with a group of hulking, unfamiliar aliens in one corner, seated around a table. There were a bunch of empty glasses there – she hoped they were the group’s, and not just his. The conversation between Poe and the aliens, all in unfamiliar language, seemed to be slightly confrontational.

Crossing towards them, Rey surreptitiously felt her side to make sure her saber was still there before she came closer. Poe looked away for that moment, toward the bar, before his eyes landed on her. His face looked unfocused, like that of men Rey had seen in corners of the market on Jakku, huddled with bottles bought with their day’s scavenging. It unnerved her.

“Rey!” he said loudly, causing the rest of his party to look over at her. Rey swore under her breath and raised her hand in greeting. Poe seemed to loudly inform his group that he would be right back and got to his feet. She noted he swayed slightly as he ambled over to her, a grin on his face. He was wearing a dark shirt with a small grey scarf, and the leather strap of his blaster crossed his chest

“Didn’t expect to see you here!” he told her loudly as he came toward her. “C’mon, let me buy you a drink. And me, buy me a drink… I’ll buy me another drink.”

The extent of his intoxication became clear, and it shocked Rey. She’d never seen him so loose like this. He clapped her on the back.

“I could say the same for you,” she told him in a quieter voice, forcing a small smile. “What are _you_ doing here?”

“Just having a little… just needed a drink. Old haunt, from my old days,” he explained disjointedly as he steered her toward the bar, right for the vacant space near Ben. Rey’s heart rate quickened and she made eye contact with him. He swiftly looked back forward, making no acknowledgement of her presence as to not alert Poe. Though, it was not particularly necessary, as Poe seemed to be in no good shape to recognize anyone he didn’t know well.

She joined Poe on the bar stool near Ben. Poe pounded twice on the bar and held up two fingers to the droid tender, calling out for something unfamiliar.

“Why aren’t you on Ajan Kloss?” Rey pressed as he turned his back to the bar, leaning against it in a lackadaisical way. “You were really busy when I left,”

Poe gave a big sigh, hanging his head toward his chin for a moment before he looked at her, a ruddy sort of look on his face.

“Needed a break,” he explained in a slur. “It’s a whole lot over there. Lots of people… and you left and now Finn…”

“What happened to Finn?” Rey asked sharply, trying her best to get whatever she could out of him. Poe gave a big shrug.

“Went off with that woman… that lady… don’t remember her name.”

“Janaah.”

“Yeah… who the fuck is that... anyway?” Poe demanded to nobody in particular, his brows scrunching. Rey pressed her lips together, not sure what to do about his animosity in the situation. The droid delivered the drinks, distracting Poe for that moment. He accepted it and took a big gulp.

“I think you’ve had enough,” Rey remarked, eyeing the increasingly restless group in the corner concernedly. Poe either didn’t hear her or didn’t care, and continued on his earlier point.

“I thought Finn and I had… eh, I thought… _shouldn’t’a thought…_.”

He trailed off and downed the rest of the drink. Rey quickly picked up her own and put it on her other side to keep it away from him. Something must have happened between the two of them after she had left. But there were more pressing issues, in her eyes.

“Who are those… who is that group? And why are they talking to you?” she pressed.

“Just some old friends. Just business… unresolved business. People remember me, you see? I make an impression, Rey…”

He turned back to the bar and put his glass down. Rey tried to distract him before he could order anything else.

“Do you need help dealing with them?” she asked. She heard Ben’s voice in her other ear, muttering urgently to her.

“They’re having a dispute about money – I was eavesdropping,” he told her, not moving his body. “They want something from him, I’m not sure what.”

Rey, feeling her adrenaline rising, sat trying to figure out what to do while Poe ruminated drunkenly, muttering something under his breath to himself. She heard one of the aliens in the corner bark out something and whipped around. They were getting to their feet, talking in angry tones amongst themselves. Poe raised his hand and said something angrily in return. Other patrons in the bar were starting to notice the scene now, some conversations around them quieting.

Poe stumbled to his feet and returned to arguing with the lead alien, a big, burly figure with a flat, smushed looking face, beady eyes, flat nose holes and an ugly, downturned mouth.

The next moment happened so quickly that the surrounding patrons didn’t seem to realize it had happened until the proverbial dust settled. Two of the main goon’s associates pulled out blasters and aimed them in the direction of Rey, Poe, and Ben. Rey had grabbed her saber but did not extend it in time to deflect the shots, she could only duck.

Ben, on the other hand, had moved more quickly, and jumping in front of Poe, stretched out his hand and caused both blaster bolts to stop in mid-air. They hung in the air in the middle of the bar, and the cantina fell silent, so much so that you could hear them buzzing as they hung, inches from Ben’s hand. The goons and the lead alien in the other group were frozen, muttering amongst themselves. The bright blue light of the bolt lit Ben’s face dramatically, showing the total concentration in his eyes. His reflexes were frighteningly good. Poe stared at Ben’s back, his eyes wide and his brows furrowed.

Ben, arm still extended, said something, sharply and firmly, in the alien language to the group who had shot at Poe. He closed his hand slightly, bringing the bolts closer to his hand, then sharply twisted it. The two bolts zoomed back out of his hand and hit the back wall of the cantina, over the alien’s heads, where they left dark, smoking scorch marks.

“Let’s go,” Ben said in an undertone to Rey. Rey, still shaken, quickly stashed her saber and tossed their bag of parts to Ben behind Poe’s back. She grabbed a bill out of her pocket, threw it on the bar as some sort of payment for damage, and then grabbed onto Poe’s forearm and steered him toward the exit. He stumbled slightly but followed her. As soon as they had cleared the cantina, the noise level within had begun to rise again, conversations undoubtedly turning to the situation that had just occurred. Luckily, they did not seem to be pursued.

“What did you say to them?” she hissed at Ben as they walked quickly through the streets of Mos Eisley.

“To leave him alone,” Ben explained quietly. Finding an alley to their left, Rey quickly steered Poe into it. Letting go of his arm, she closed in on him, backing him into a wall as Ben hung a back a few paces behind, checking that the coast was clear.

“ _What…_ ” Poe slurred, looking between her and Ben, looking mightily confused. “Who… _whasshappening_?”

“What _was_ that?” Rey demanded in an angry undertone. “You could have died – why were they shooting?”

At her verbal jabs, Poe took a step back and stumbled again.

“Look – who’s _that_?” he said, pointing sharply at the tall figure of Ben behind Rey. He raised a hand to his forehead, his face looking unfocused. Rey sighed, in no mind to give him a full explanation.

“I remember… that happening… Jakku…” Poe continued, frowning and, holding his forehead. He took a step forward, swaying, and suddenly, his knees gave out and he fell forward, dropping into the sand before Rey.


	7. Chapter 7

Rey was woken early, earlier than she had intended to, by hazy, unsettling dreams that faded quickly from memory as she came to the world of wakefulness. She rubbed her face, ruminating again on another chaotic night.

Poe had passed out cold in the alley in Mos Eisley, and since they couldn’t just leave him there to be vulnerable till morning, Rey and Ben brought him back to the homestead, both now extremely uneasy about what had occurred, Rey especially. They had just won the battle against the First Order, and their general was at some random cantina, almost getting killed by random goons. And Ben’s use of the Force, while justified in that situation, could have exposed them both. It was all becoming more and more of a mess.

They had put Poe in one of the empty beds and made it to their own wordlessly, it being late in the night by the time they had made it back. When Rey woke, she checked on Poe. He was still dozing away where they had left him. Standing in the doorway of his room, she gave a sigh. Another morning of explanations.

Letting her hair loose from its ties, Rey wandered to the doorway, seeking some fresh air. Outside, the pale light of the early morning washed over the dry expanse of the landscape. It was refreshingly cool compared to the oppressive heat of the mid-day on Tatooine. She stepped out and, somehow unsurprisingly, found Ben sitting on a rock outside. He was sitting with his knees up, resting his hands atop them and staring off into the distance. She noticed how often he did that – look into the horizon, like there could be some sort of answers to be found there. She watched him, completely still in his contemplation, for a few moments.

She then took a few steps over to him, observing just how quiet the early morning was. Ben turned his head to look at her as she came over.

“You’re up early,” she observed, walking over and finding a space to sit beside him. She folded her legs to the side and lay her hands in her lap. The breeze played with her loose hair. Ben gave a small shrug.

“Strange dreams,” he said simply.

“I’ve had a few of those in the last few days too,” Rey admitted. Ben nodded.

“One I had…” he began, looking back out into the distance for a few moments before speaking again. “One I had seemed to show me… what my life could have been like if I hadn’t joined Snoke. It… it caused the reaction that triggered my outburst the other night. What you must have felt.”

“What was that like?” Rey said breathlessly, remembering her own dream that seemed to be much like that.

Ben looked her in the eye, sadness within his own long face.

“Too beautiful for words.”

They held each other’s gaze for a few long moments. In the blueish light of the early morning, the sensitivity within Ben’s angular face was deeply enticing for Rey. For someone who had longed for connection her whole life, this distance between them, combined with their undeniable, deep seated bond – it felt torturous.

Ben’s lips parted wordlessly for a moment, like he was going to say something, but only broke their eye contact again. Rey felt shoulders she hadn’t noticed were tense fall. It had felt like the intimacy of the moment was leading him to say something, perhaps about his feelings, but he’d denied himself the chance.

Rey could barely hold back her own feelings, an emphatic declaration of her desire for him, but stayed silent too. She cast her eyes down, feeling sadness overwhelm her. The sight of Ben’s hanging hands, long and elegant, caught her eye. One palm, she noticed with a start, was slashed with a shiny red burn.

“Your hand,” she murmured, realizing he must have burned his hand when he captured the bolts too closely back at the cantina. Getting permission with her gaze, Rey move to sit on her legs, and picked up Ben’s burnt hand with both of her own. She placed each of her thumbs on either end of the burn and took a deep breath, closing her eyes as she did it. When she opened them again, his palm was back to normal.

He was also so close, she noticed. She had been leaning forward when she moved to do her healing. He had not been so close since… since he’d saved her life back on Exegol. And they’d kissed with a deep passion. Ben’s eyes were cast down, and he suddenly looked back up, meeting her gaze with his dark eyes. When he breathed, she felt it. Both were frozen for a moment, lost in the other’s gaze.

“ _What the hell is going on here?_ ”

A voice on their left caused both Ben and Rey to snap back to reality and whip around to look at its source. Poe Dameron, his clothes and hair rumpled, stood by the entrance to the farm home. He was holding a blaster with two hands, extended and pointed directly at Ben. There was anger and confusion in his face; his brows were furrowed over his wide eyes and his mouth turned down and parted, surrounded by a peppering of facial hair. 

“Poe!” Rey exclaimed, dropping Ben’s hand like it were burning hot and jumping to her feet. “What are you doing with that?”

“What are you doing with _him_?” Poe demanded incredulously. He was breathing heavily. “Because unless this is a fucking nightmare…”

Rey felt Ben stand up beside her, taking a step back and making no motion to pull any weapons or run away. Poe continued to stare at them, nodding suddenly, slowly, to himself.

“I knew it. I knew as soon as you caught those bolts… I’ve only ever see someone do that once in my life. _Why did you do it?_ And… why didn’t you say he was alive, Rey?!”

His words came fast and disturbed, like he was not sure what he needed to know more.

“Put that down,” Rey instructed him swiftly. “We can talk – once you’ve put it down.”

Poe shook his head, causing his unruly curls to shake.

“I can’t. Rey – we’ve been chasing this guy for… _what are you doing?_ What’s going on?”

Rey took a step to her side and back, until she felt she was standing directly in front of Ben. Poe blanched, continuing to look between her and Ben in shock. The pale light washing over him made him look much paler than he was.

“I can’t let you do anything with that,” Rey continued in her firm tone. “You almost got yourself killed last night. You’re lucky you made it out of there alive. I can’t believe you would let yourself get into that position.”

“Where am I?” Poe demanded.

“You’re on Tatooine, outside Mos Eisley. We took you out of there last night, after you passed out.”

“You’ve been here the whole time?”

“Some of the time.”

Poe’s elbow began to shake. He steadied it with his other hand, but didn’t put down the blaster. Rey shook her head at him, wishing she could will him to stop. But… she _could, couldn’t she?_

She raised a hand and extended it toward Poe and his blaster. Behind her, she could feel Ben tense up and silently willed him not to make any sudden movements.

“Don’t make me do it,” she said, feeling almost tearful at the thought of having to use the Force on him. “Please, just put it down before I have to do it.”

“You wouldn’t…”

A moment of fear passed along Poe’s face but he returned to steely, disturbed determination after a moment. Rey squeezed her lips closed, begging him in her head to do something before she had to make the first move.

The two stared each other down, arms outstretched, both in disbelief at being threatened by the other. It was Poe who buckled first. He slowly lowered his blaster arm, before placing the weapon on the ground beside him, taking a step back. He was mumbling something to himself out of Rey’s earshot. She lowered her own hand and took a breath.

"War’s been over for what, three days, and we’re already pulling weapons on each other, huh?” Poe remarked with a mixture of contempt, bitterness and sadness. Rey looked down at her feet, feeling shame wash over her.

“I’m sorry,” she said, looking back at him and wiping a tear off her face with the back of her hand. When Poe saw that she was crying, he softened, but with his eyes flicking back to Ben, it was clear he couldn’t fully ease up.

“Let’s just talk inside,” Rey proposed.

“I’m not talking with him.” Poe countered sharply, his eyes flicking to Ben again. Ben and Rey exchanged a look and he nodded to her, both understanding that it would be best if he stayed out of it for the time being. He took a few steps away and resumed his spot sitting on the rock with his knees up, looking into the distance. Rey looked back up at Poe and gestured for him to enter the house. He stood by the door, staring at Ben until Rey was at the doorway too. Only then was he able to tear his eyes away and come inside. D-O chirped a greeting at Poe when they entered.

Rey turned on the light and dispensed a glass of water for each of them, setting them down on the table, where she seated herself across from Poe. He took the glass and took a deep drag.

“Thanks,” he said, wiping his mouth with the back of his head. He raised a hand to smooth down his hair. “And thank for you for taking care of me last night. And I’m sorry for threatening you. But-“

“Thank Ben,” Rey replied coolly. “He was the one who saved you. I wasn’t fast enough. He kept you from being blasted and headed off a fight.”

“ _Ben…_ ” Poe said softly, acidly.

Rey raised her eyes to the ceiling, taking a steadying breath and trying to center herself and have sympathy for his mindset. With the strength of her and Ben’s connection, it was easy to forget… everything that had transpired earlier, and how those events had impacted Poe.

“Okay,” she said, folding her hands on the table before her. “Let me lay out everything. No secrets, nothing held back.”

Poe quickly interrupted her with questions.

“Where did he come from? How did you find each other? Why is he alive – why is he here? What-“

Rey held up a hand, trying to maintain the calm in the room. Poe fell silent, capitulating. He drained the rest of his water and waited quietly.

Rey began, telling Poe the full story of her confrontation with the Emperor on Exegol and all that had happened in its runup and aftermath. She began by explaining how she had killed, and then brought back, Ben, when she knew Kylo Ren was dead and gone upon the loss of Leia. She explained how she came to Ahch-To and almost gave up, but was saved by the ghost of Luke, who gave her Leia’s lightsaber and his ship. She explained how she confronted the Emperor on Exegol, galvanized by the appearance of Ben to come help her. Then, she told him how the Emperor had used their life forces, how she had redirected his killing force back at him with the power of the past Jedi, and how Ben saved her life after the fact.

She proceeded to explain how Ben had correctly predicted the universe wasn’t ready for his return yet, and how she had come back for him and damaged her ship in the process, necessitating a visit to Mos Eisley. The one thing she left out was his attempt to end his life which she had interrupted. It felt too personal to disclose quite yet.

As she told the whole story, Poe stared at her with a serious expression. It shifted slightly every so often at the particularly incredible parts of the story, like at the reveal of Rey’s lineage, and how Ben had brought her back to life. But he kept his word to stay silent. As she got to the part where she told him about leaving the base and coming back here, he dropped his gaze to the table.

“So the Emperor is really dead? Completely?” he said finally, after she had finished speaking and taken a drink of water. Rey nodded.

“Completely. I saw it. He’s gone. All that’s left… there’s nothing left. Nothing but me.”

Poe seemed to shiver at the thought. He met her gaze again, brows furrowed.

“Just… just how could you keep all this from us?” he asked in a quieter voice that rose as he continued. “That whole conversation we had on the base – I even asked you-“

“I told you I’d tell you everything in due time. You needed to be there, focusing on everything with the Resistance. I never lied.”

Poe nodded slowly, realizing that she was indeed telling the truth, as much as he may not have liked it.

“This is all so completely…” he turned to shaking his head. “It’s unbelievable. I just can’t… I can’t believe he’s alive. Just walking around out there.”

He turned his head to look towards the doorway, a muscle in his jaw tightening.

“What was I supposed to do?” Rey said, quietly, looking at her hands. “I couldn’t have killed the Emperor without him. We’re… we’re linked. Through the Force.”

“I can’t with you Force people sometimes… Ships, I get. Blasters, perfectly clear. But all this stuff with connections and-and energies, it’s, it’s too much for me.”

“You couldn’t begin to understand.” Rey remarked, trying to keep the tartness out of her voice. It was a powerful and heavy burden, and Rey was curious what life might be like if she did not have to shoulder it. Poe actually nodded, not getting any disrespect from her tone.

“Now that I’ll believe.”

He began to rub at his forehead and face with his fingers, clearly pushing away exhaustion, before putting his palms down on the table and looking her straight in the eye again.

“What can you expect me to do, though?” he asked seriously. “The first time I saw this guy, the first time… I saw him cut down an old man, a Resistance informer, with his lightsaber – in cold blood. I saw him order the death of a whole village. That’s not to mention the Hosnian system, everyone killed in a First Order firefight… how can I look at him, living, and abide by any of _that? How can you?”_

Rey sat in silence for a few moments, sadness in her face.

“There’s no easy answer,” she said finally, meeting his gaze again, and giving a small sigh. “The Dark side is powerful. It’s seductive. It makes people think and do things – it attracts in a way you can never understand. Palpatine was behind this whole thing, the whole time, pulling the strings, playing everyone like puppets. I can’t explain away everything he did, either. There’s no way to erase all of that.”

“But how can you defend-“  
“I can’t,” Rey cut in firmly as he interrupted. “But I know two things. I know that Han,

Luke, and Leia, they all gave their lives to stop the Dark. Leia never gave up on bringing back her son. She gave her last breath to do it. Doing that now would be an insult to their Poe looked away, his brows furrowed, clearly conflicted inside.

"There has to be a middle ground between inflicting revenge and assigning responsibility,” he mumbled. Rey sighed, folding her hands again.

“Ben saved my life, and yours. That’s what I know right now. He’s powerful, the only one with as much Force power as me in the galaxy. _I_ know we can make things better together. What he thinks… and what you think, and everyone else… those are different. Now,”

She looked him into the eye and, feeling more sure of herself, proceeded with her own questions.

“Care to explain why saving you last night was even necessary in the first place?”

Poe took a deep breath and pushed a hand through his hair.

“I was wondering when I’d be the one answering questions,” he muttered. Rey said nothing, and just waited patiently for him to explain.

“After you left… I had kind of an argument with Finn.”

“Kind of an argument?”

“I… I picked a fight. I knew he was leaving with Jannah and I… it bothered me that he wasn’t staying longer. You… you I knew had your own quest that was going to be beyond me. And I was right. But, but I thought Finn might be sticking around.”

He paused and stared at the table for a minute, clearly in regretful thought about what he had done.

“The point is, I let my feelings get in my way, and then he had to leave all of the sudden and I sort of… well, I wasn’t too happy. I left my duties for the night and knew I had to go somewhere, somewhere I thought I could be anonymous. Just get drunk by myself, I guess. So I came to Tatooine… I _thought_ I wouldn’t find anyone I knew. I had… too much, I mean, you saw it. And I got into a discussion, let’s say, with some old guys I used to know from my Kijimi days. They brought up some… unfinished business. And that whole thing… devolved.”

Rey nodded slowly.

“That’s a good word for it,” she remarked, and Poe gave a hollow laugh.

“I guess I was lucky you guys showed up. Thank you. Guess we both have some stuff to work out.”

He met Rey’s eyes, smiling sadly at her, clearly extremely worn out. He raised his hands to his head again, clearly suffering from a headache after all his drinking, and gave a wince.

"I… _why_ did he save me?” Poe mumbled behind his hands. “I’m never going to be able to…”

He trailed off again. Rey sat without saying anything. This was not the timeline she had been hoping for to explain all this. But it was never going to be easy. Poe put down his hands, looking at Rey wearily.

“What do we do now?” he asked, sounding genuinely unsure. Rey looked toward the doorway, out of which she could see a snatch of the early morning’s pale sky. She caught his eye again.

“Rest,” she said decisively. “Rest, and regroup.”


	8. Chapter 8

After their conversation, Poe resisted Rey’s advice to sleep off more of his headache, and convinced her to let him take their speeder back to Mos Eisley so he could retrieve his ship. While he was gone, Rey and Ben worked to fix her own ship, neither saying much to each other besides what was necessary to collaborate on the repairs. They took a break after a good deal of work to have some food.

Returning to the same table where she had just sat with Poe, Rey divided up a ration for their lunch and added the water that activated the food while Ben sat, silently staring at her hands at work. He had not brought up her conversation with Poe and she was starting to wonder if he would. Ben accepted the plate she passed him with a murmur of thanks. Rey sat down, taking a drink of water.

“Do you want to know what Poe asked me?” she said, unable to keep waiting for him to inquire – it was starting to seem like he might never do so. Ben, who was silently eating, looked up at her and paused. He swallowed the food that was in his mouth.

“It was a private conversation,” he answered. Rey tilted her head, scrutinizing him.

“Aren’t you worried he will reveal your state to the entire Resistance?” she pressed. “And where you are?”

Ben said nothing, looking down. Rey, fired up again, continued her questions.

“Exactly what is your plan from here on out? Am I supposed to just leave you here? For people to come find you when the word gets out?”

“Dameron can tell anyone he wants,” Ben replied after a contemplative pause. “He’s earned the right… to have his way with me. So long as it doesn’t mean you getting hurt.”

“But - I can’t stand by and let _you_ be hurt-“

"Which is exactly why we shouldn’t be together,” Ben interrupted quickly, serious intensity in his eyes. “I need to go somewhere… else. Somewhere even you don’t know.”

Rey’s lips tightened.

"So you’re just going to run, that’s it?” she asked. Ben looked at her sadly for a few more moments, declining to get angry. It was almost frustrating to Rey. She wanted to try to convince him, to debate it, but when he looked at her like that, it was difficult to keep her resolve.

Whatever she was going to say next was interrupted by the sound of footsteps coming up to the building. Ben and Rey looked over at the door and she jumped up. When she opened the door, she found herself face to face with Poe, his hand raised like he was about to knock.

“Hi,” he said after a pause, his eyes flicking back to observe Ben sitting at the table Rey had just vacated. Poe looked back behind him at his own ship, parked some ways away, then back to the house. He cleared his throat and gestured his head outside, clearly beckoning Rey to join him in a conversation. She stepped out and closed the door behind her, tilting her head expectantly. Poe looked at her, seemingly unsure where to begin.

“You look different without your hair up,” he said finally. Rey raised a brow. Poe quickly rubbed the side of his face and turned into the direction of his ship, gesturing for her to follow.

“Got my speeder?” Rey asked as they walked slowly toward it.

“Yeah, I towed it. It’s back where it was this morning. I’m all set to go.”

Poe looked down at his feet for a few moments then back at Rey.

“Look… I gotta go back to the base. I don’t know how to best… how long I can keep a lid on all this. I’m really grateful for you guys helping me, but… but people deserve to know.”

Rey swallowed, choosing her next words carefully.

“What are you going to tell them?” she asked in a controlled tone.

“The truth. What you told me. That Ky- that… that he helped you kill the Emperor. And he’s alive. That you both saved my life. And… and, that you stand by him.”

Rey felt some of her tenseness ease up, but she knew they were far from in the clear.

“Thank you,” she replied. They were nearing Poe’s ship now. “How do you think people will react?”

Poe gave a shrug and squinted into the distance.

“It’s hard to say. I think most people want this thing to be over. And they know not to mess with you… or anyone with as much Force power as you. But I can’t stop anyone from… I just can’t control everyone.”

“I wish I could talk to Finn,” Rey remarked quietly as they came to a stop, genuinely missing her friend dearly. She wanted to have this conversation with him – to get his reaction.

“Me too,” Poe said wearily. “Me too.”

Rey, feeling a swell of sympathy, turned and took her friend in a hug. The pain of unrequited– or at least unreciprocated – love, as she well knew, was great. 

“How bad am I screwing all this up?” Poe muttered into his shoulder in the middle of the hug. They broke apart and Rey looked him in the face sympathetically.

“There’s no right way in all of this,” she said finally. “Your heart is in the right place, Poe.”

The corner of Poe’s mouth flicked up, and there was a glimmer of that handsome roguishness that was so characteristic of him within his face. The sight brought some much needed relief to Rey. She watched him climb aboard his ship and settle in with the top open. He leaned out and called down to Rey.

“Where are you going?” he inquired.

Rey gave him a determined smile and shouted back up.

“The place I’m going to train the Jedi!”

\---

Landing on Ahch-To reminded Rey of the first time she had seen the watery planet. She remembered what it had been like to be filled with breathless determination with Chewbacca by her side as they rode in through the fluffy clouds of the ocean-covered planet, so different from what she was used to on Jakku. The land on the island was a series of hilly, rocky islands with a healthy population of screeching porgs and the tiny, avian Lanai caretakers of the old Jedi temples. Unlike the dryness and heat of Tatooine, the breeze here always blew in crisp, moist air, giving the place a pleasant, cool climate. It was a cloudy, windy day, adding to the general mysterious peacefulness of the place.

Back on Tatooine after the departure of Poe, Ben and Rey had finished their meal and the repairs to the ship. They were forced to confront the essential question yet again.

“Let me show you something, first,” Rey said as she stood by the her ship, her bag on her shoulder as she looked up into Ben’s face. She had been thinking for some time of how to change Ben’s mind and realized he had never been to Ahch-To, the final resting place of his own master, Luke, and the location of the Jedi temples of old.

“Show me what?” he asked, scrutinizing her.

“A place. Something you should see.”

Rey landed the ship with ease and the two of them disembarked. Immediately, she felt the heightened presence of the Force there. It was something she had struggled with her first time there, especially feeling the Dark. But now, after her near death on Exegol and the generations of past Jedi who had urged her on – she felt more comfortable with the Force than ever before.

“Do you feel it?” Rey called to Ben. He had taken a few steps away in the grass, his head raised to survey the island. The vast all-planet ocean stretched out behind him as he looked out, his shirt and hair ruffled by the sea air. He turned his head to look at her, a curious expression on his face – not confused, but like he was struggling to comprehend something before him.

“What is this place?” he replied. Rey slid her bag to the ground and walked over to him, relishing the way the cool air felt on her skin.

“This is where the Jedi were born,” Rey said, surveying the surroundings too. “This is where the first temples are located. The old texts were stored here.”

She looked him back in the eye.

“It’s where Luke went into exile for all those years. It’s where I found him. And also where his ghost helped me at the last moment, before I confronted the Emperor.”

Ben’s eyes had gone wide at the realization that this had been the place whose location was so coveted, so mysterious.

“Do you feel the power here?” Rey pressed, taking a step closer to him. Ben nodded slowly.

“This is where you were,” Ben thought aloud. “When we first began to connect.”

Rey nodded. Ben’s brows furrowed again.

“Why did you bring me here?” he asked.

“Because you deserve to feel it too. The power of this place… we may be the last of the Jedi. But they live on… I feel their presence here. And…. this is where I’m going to train the next generation,” she finished, now mentally picturing what she would need to do to make her program a reality. She’d need a new place to live, that was for sure, the little stone huts were too impermanent. But they would be good for the Padawan.

Looking up at Ben, she wanted to ask him, one more time, if he would join her. But she held herself back. It was too soon yet.

“Come on,” she said, gesturing for him to follow and picking up her bag. “You should see more.”

Rey and Ben walked up the many stone steps up to the higher planes on the hilly, cloudy island. Ben was quiet as he walked through the unfamiliar landscape. He felt like he was walking in a dream. It was a place he had wondered about for the longest time, the place where his old master had hid for years after their confrontation during his training. Ben had spent a long time imagining what it may be like – and a long time searching for it. Now to see it with his own eyes was a revelation. He was taken by everything – the little stone huts, the caves of the old temples, the smell of the sea all around. Rey toured him around, explaining the function of the different parts of the island. Being back there seemed to bring her a great deal of peace, he noticed.

In contrast, inside himself, there was still great chaos. The place left him feeling deeply conflicted. On one hand, being there had somehow felt _right_. Perhaps it was the sheer power of the Force or how long he’d dreamed of finally finding this place and unlocking its secrets. But this was also where Luke had hidden – hidden from what he had helped create: Kylo Ren. Truly, what Luke had nearly done to him had been a catalyst to his complete submission to the Dark and to Snoke.

But now he knew Luke was just doing what he, Ben, had done multiple times too – acting on a vision of the future he imagined absolute, unless he did something about it. And he’d given himself – rectifying his mistake – to stop Ben as Kylo Ren from defeating the last force that could stop the First Order; the Resistance. Ben had felt his uncle become one with the Force. It was his last act.

The clouds were starting to gather more heavily overhead and the suns starting to fall as they continued to walk around the craggy island, making their way back down, when what felt like whispers on the wind came across Ben’s consciousness. He stopped in his tracks. Rey, who was a step or two ahead of him, turned to look at him, but cast her gaze quickly to the side.

“Oh…” she murmured, looking somewhere to her right, and taking a few steps toward the edge of the cliff beside them, looking at something below. Ben, caught up in a feeling he forgotten how it was to feel, followed her and looked down.

They were gazing at a sea-swept outcropping in the cliff. At its center, a gaping pit surrounded by dark vines that crawled out of it like poison surrounding a wound. Ben’s blood felt cold. He knew what that feeling was. It was something that had first stirred within him years ago, when he was still under the training of Luke.

“What is that…” he said in a disturbed, hushed tone. Rey stared at it for a while.

“A place I thought I’d find answers a long time ago,” she said softly. “A dark place.”

Ben stared down, feeling an increased level of fear and disgust, and stumbled a few steps back. Around them, the winds began to pick up. Rey, looking at him with concern, stepped back too and then turned her eyes to the sky, which had become snarled with dark, grey clouds.

“Let’s go,” she said, looking uncertainly at the coming storm, and speaking louder now that the wind was picking up. Ben, who hadn’t torn his eyes away from the mysterious pit, was not quite ready to leave.

"Wait – what’s in there?” he asked, looking at Rey with his brows furrowed. Rey glanced uncomfortably over toward the pit again.

“A… cave, with a strange… mirrored wall. It has Dark power.”

She suddenly froze and looked up at him.

“Help me,” she said quickly. “We have to destroy it.”

“What?”

“We can’t – I can’t have it there for the Padawan… it’s too enticing. But I don’t think I can do it alone.”

Ben, blinking, looked down toward the pit. Undeniably, it was pulling him, in a way he didn’t like. It reminded him of his vulnerable youth. He did not want to come any closer. But he owed Rey, and he knew she was right.

He looked back up at her and nodded, feeling the Skywalker lightsaber upon his hip with his hand. With the winds starting to truly whip and the whitecaps within the sea rising in number, they hopped down to the pit’s outcropping; a cold, damp feeling place. They stood on opposite edges of the pit, looking down. The hair on the back of Ben’s neck stood up – he felt the darkness emanating from the pit like it was something tangible.

Rey called something to him over the sound of the storm, but Ben couldn’t hear it. He leaned forward, about to ask her to repeat it, but felt a sudden, strong pull that dislodged his center of gravity and yanked him forward, the edges of his feet sliding over the edge of the pit. He let out a shout as he felt himself begin to plunge into darkness, before his body fell into a deep, icy cold body of water.


	9. Chapter 9

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry for the radio silence folks, I've recently started a new job and it's been super hectic. Here it is, the final chapter, than you to those who enjoyed this story, I hope it's a satisfying conclusion.

Liquid flooded the inside of Ben’s lungs and he kicked with all his might, emerging from the water just when it felt like the edges of his vision were going black. He coughed and gasped for breath, kicking his legs to stay on the top of the water.

“ _Rey?!”_ he called desperately into the darkness. A few feet to his right, something emerged out of the water. Even through the dimness of the cave, he could see it was her. His limbs were already starting to go numb from the cold as he kicked over to her, reaching out through the water till he was able to grab her extended hand. Rey gestured before her with her other hand and the two swam over in that direction until they were able to grab the rocky edge of the pool of water. Ben came up behind Rey and lifted her by her waist until she was able to emerge onto the bank, and then pushed himself up by his own arms.

“Thank you,” Rey managed, after they had spent a moment lying on the edge of the pool, catching their breaths and shivering. The angry stormy sky was visible beyond the cave, in the crack where seawater was able to rush in. Giving a nod, Ben rose, shaking the water out of his hair. He found himself facing a large, crystalline looking rock face. In it, he could see the very hazy reflections of himself and Rey, merely large blobs of color in this distance and light. The wall had an enticing, disturbing magnetism. It made him want to approach it.

Reaching for his saber, he gripped it unsheathed in one hand as he took a few steps closer to the wall, Rey behind him. He activated it, sending brilliant blue light through the cave around them.

“I thought this would show… show me my parents,” Rey explained hesitantly behind him as he continued to stare into the crystalline wall’s murky depths. “But all I saw was myself.”

Slowly, Ben reached out one of his large, pale hands until it was millimeters from the wall. The moment he made contact with the wall, he felt a jerk behind his naval and his surroundings suddenly changed. The cavern around him, the pool of water, the soggy rock – it was all gone, surrounded by a dim murkiness.

“What is this,” he muttered to himself, turning around, his lightsaber still in his hand. “ _Rey?!”_

He began to turn around, looking for something, any piece of reality to hold onto.

“ _Ben?”_

He spun around, sure he had heard the voice of Rey behind him.

“Rey!” he repeated, clutching his saber harder, looking around wildly for her. Suddenly, there she was, approaching from a distance, running over to him, her hair streaming behind her. Relief flooded over Ben and he extinguished his saber. But before he could come any closer to him, someone – a tall figure in a dark robe – seemed to step out of his very footprints and walk toward Rey. The figure extended a saber.

She stopped, her brows suddenly furrowing, like she was afraid of what the figure might do. Ben wanted to jump in and stop the figure but he suddenly felt frozen – his body unable to move – like he was being forced to watch what was in front of him.

"What are you doing?” Rey said nervously, taking a step back. The tall figure wordlessly pulled back his saber and shoved it at full might right at her torso. The saber pierced her body with a sickening sound and the blood seemed to rush from her face.

“ _NO!_ ” Ben screamed, so sickened by the sight and his inability to do anything about it. He felt like he could no longer stand up but was unable to move. It felt as if there were invisible shackles around his arms and ankles. The figure before him pulled back his lightsaber as Rey crumpled to the ground, her eyes closed and her body still, her wound smoking.

The tall figure turned. His cloak swished and he revealed his true identity to Ben.

It was himself, clad in the all black garments he favored in his old life. Unlike Ben, the long scar cutting across his face was still there. He came to a stop, staring at Ben with an empty anger on his face – the same expression Ben used to wear most of the time as Kylo Ren. It was a sight so bewildering, Ben wouldn’t have known what to do even if he was able to move.

“ _Destroy it_ ,” a familiar voice suddenly said in Ben’s ear. “Conquer your fear.”

“ _I can’t move!”_ Ben protested loudly. He used his peripheral vision to see who the owner of the voice was. When the voice revealed its owner, Ben gasped.

“You only think you can’t,” the ghost of Ben’s old master, Luke Skywalker, said to him, floating further forward to stand to the left, in front of the image of Kylo Ren. “The Dark side is testing you again.”

The sight of his old Master, not quite corporeal but a blueish, glowing version of what had been his real body, plunged Ben into pain. He felt tears stinging his eyes, remembering his last interaction with who he thought was Luke Skywalker, but was only a Force-apparition of him.

“Master,” Ben gasped. “What could I possibly… how can I possibly apologize, I –“

Luke raised a hand and shook his head slowly.

“When I was ready to give up myself,” he said sagely. “My master reminded me that failure is the best teacher. I failed in training you properly – I should have known you would be a target for the Emperor.”

“It was me who failed you,” Ben said quickly, his chest heaving. “I fell to the Dark. I caused all this. It’s my fault – I let myself be seduced and I pushed away everyone who wanted to bring me back.”

Luke gave the smallest of smiles.

“My grandfather fell too. But at the end… I brought him back. It must be a part of the Skywalker legacy.”

It was almost funny but Ben did not laugh. The urgency of the situation came back to him, as he looked upon Rey’s limp body again, sending a new wave of frigid fear through him.

“Master, how do I leave this awful place? How can I save – is that real? Is she really –“

"The Dark side is efficient in showing you things so great, and so awful, that you would turn to it. This cave,” Luke said, gesturing around him. “This cave shows you your worst fear. It is a Dark illusion. I encountered one much like it on Dagobah during my training with my Master, Yoda. The Dark side is trying to push you away from the one thing holding you fiercely in the light. Does this sight scare you? What does it make you want to do?”

Ben thought for a moment. _Run_ , he realized. It made him want to run, run as far away from Rey as he could and never look back – so he could never hurt her like this.

He looked into the eyes of his master again. Luke looked at him like he knew what he was thinking. He spoke more urgently now. 

“It will let you run. But it will continue to pursue you. _Resist it, Ben_. Resist and fight. Counter it with its only cosmic equivalent.”

Ben realized Luke was talking about more than just the cave before him. He was talking about his life as a whole, his life now. He _was_ at a crossroads, and two sides of him were pulling him apart, each desiring something different. He had thought that running, leaving Rey and not facing the future was the right thing, the best thing, to preserve the order of the galaxy.

But maybe that’s exactly what the Dark wanted him to do. He looked at his master, who was staring at him like he knew his old Padawan was capable of conquering the Dark. It was so unlike the look on his face that had been burnt into Ben’s memories, the look Luke wore when he was standing over him that night that he clearly contemplated killing his own trainee for the greater good. He looked disgusted, even frightened. His master had given up on him, in that moment, for just long enough to incur Ben’s wrath and turn him forever.

His master was not giving up on him now.

Ben looked at the apparition of himself, who was still standing there, regarding him with menacing cold while Rey’s body lay behind him. He closed his eyes and cast his thoughts back, as far back as he could, summoning strength from memories he had long since shut out.

The feeling of his mother’s warm embrace. Riding on Chewbacca’s shoulders as a boy, laughing while gripping the Wookie’s long fur in his small hands. His father, sitting him down in the seat of the Millennium Falcon, placing his hands on the controls. Master Luke, putting his very first lightsaber in his hands. The face of Rey, holding her hand over his torso as she healed a wound with her sheer Force powers. How she had looked blinking up at him after he had brought her back, how they had leaned into one another in a deep embrace and a passionate kiss.

These were all built on love. Love – what he had long denied himself, pushing it away in favor of the Dark. He looked at Rey’s body again, realizing it.

He loved her. With every fiber of himself, he loved her.

Looking back at the angry form of his reflection, he willed his body forward, emitting a scream of effort. The invisible shackles were broken – his lightsaber thrust forward and collided with the body of his apparition, which felt more like stone than human body. Ben felt the heat of the collision scorch up his arm and he let out another pained yell.

The murky surroundings whisked away at that moment; the apparition of Kylo Ren and Rey’s body and the ghost of Luke disappeared, and Ben found himself standing back in the cavern, face to face with the crystalline cavern wall, in which his lightsaber was plunged. A series of glowing cracks were spreading from where his lightsaber dug into the wall. He heard Rey’s voice beside him, saying something he could not understand, and moments later, her own lightsaber colliding with the crystal wall beside his.

The cracks grew, longer and wider, filling the room with the jarring, excruciating sound of rock breakage. Pieces of the wall began to fall down as the whole cavern seemed to shake. With another groan of effort, Ben ripped his saber from the wall, sheathed it, and turned to Rey.

“ _We have to go!”_ he shouted at her and swung around behind her, wrapping his arms around her shoulders and over her arms, grasping the place where her shaking hands held her saber. The two gave a single colossal heave and Rey’s saber slid out of the rock face. More and more pieces began to fall, shattering on the ground around them. Ben wrapped his arm around Rey’s waist, reached an arm into the sky and took a huge breath of concentration, summoning the Force.

_Up._

The two of them flew straight into the air directly out of the pit and landed hard on the cliff edge above the outcropping, where Ben had first felt the pit’s call. They disconnected upon impact, each rolling to a side, immediately becoming drenched yet again, this time by the storm’s rain. Scrambling, Ben crawled over to take Rey in his arms as they scooted backward, hearing the earth shatteringly loud sound of sheer rock breakage before them. The edge of the cliff that held the pit – the roof of the cavern - had begun to crumble, falling into the ocean.

There were great splashes as the giant pieces of rock hit the ocean below. And then suddenly – it was over. The island was again plunged back into its natural state, interrupted only by a crack of thunder. Rain poured over the land and sea and waves crashed into the island’s sides, but everything was back as it usually was, except now, the cavern was destroyed.

Ben and Rey sat there for a few moments, chests heaving and rainwater pouring down their faces as the gravity of what had just occurred washed over them both. They were seated side by side, with Ben’s arms wrapped around Rey’s back and his other across her shoulder and waist. She was holding his chest and sopping wet shirt with her hands, both still staring at the place where there had been the pit, but now was just ocean running over rocks.

Rey quickly turned to look up at Ben’s face.

“What happened in there?” she said, looking breathless. Ben looked at her. To be able to feel her warmth and see the life in her eyes filled him with ecstatic relief.

“I saw something horrible,” Ben explained, still blinking, still half in disbelief. “And I couldn’t move to stop it. But Luke… Luke came to me. And he told me how I could destroy it.”

Rey’s eyes were wide.

“How?” she whispered.

Ben looked deeply into her face, stunned as he had been from the beginning with the beauty within it – her large, intelligent eyes, the elegant angles of her cheekbones and her nose, the curves in her soft lips. Ben moved his arm from her shoulder to her chin, holding it with the gentlest of touches. She’d saved him, yet again.

“I,” he began hesitantly, mesmerized by her curious gaze. Finally, he knew he had to say it.

“I love you.”

And without wasting another minute, he leaned down and captured her lips in his own again, in the way he had wanted to so much, for so long. Like in his dream, he felt her arms wrap around his neck as he continued to kiss her, not wanting the moment to be so short like it had been on Exegol.

“I’m done running,” he said urgently, when they had broken apart, ignoring the water running down his face and looking her deeply in the eyes. “Whatever comes… I’m ready. I can’t be apart from you. You’ve led me out of the Dark.” 

A smile had spread across Rey’s face. She reached a hand to push some of his wet hair away from his eyes.

“Whatever comes,” she agreed. They pulled closer to one another, both feeling a great deal warmer despite the pouring rain.

The future was far from certain, this Ben knew. There was still so much left unanswered.

But they were facing it as one, and that made all the difference.


End file.
